This Filipino Dish Won Over Both Gordon Ramsay And Anthony Bourdain

Southeast Asia is a culinary wonderland of bold flavors and textures, and has garnered fans all over the world. While Thai and Vietnamese food often receive more exposure, other cuisines of the region are also getting time in the spotlight. Filipino food deservedly has fans of the celebrity chef kind, namely Gordon Ramsay and the late Anthony Bourdain. One dish these chefs have a common adoration for is sisig. 

According to Philstar, when Ramsay was asked to name the best dish he had eaten in recent years, he said, "There's a young kid in Melbourne ... he's a Filipino chef ... and the restaurant is called Serai ... We were eating his Taco Sisig. He took all those crispy pig's ears, the nose, the snout, and put them inside a taco, and it was just like, how exciting is that?" As for Bourdain, Food & Wine quoted him as saying, "I think sisig is perfectly positioned to win the hearts and minds of the world as a whole." On a 2008 trip to the Philippines, Bourdain noted, "Sisig is everything I love about food" (via Lifestyle.Inq). 

Just in case sisig is one of the Filipino foods you haven't tried, let us dive into what it is. The base of a Sisig is essentially a boiled pig's head. The meat, including cheeks and ears, is trimmed off and chopped up before being grilled with chicken livers and plenty of alliums, ginger, and chilies. These crisp, fatty, and spicy bits are often served on a sizzling cast iron plate with a raw egg yolk and always with sliced calamansi limes. This sweet citrus fruit is popular in Southeast Asia, and the tangy brightness of calamansi juice cuts through the fattiness of the meat, making it an irresistible dish. 

While there are centuries-old versions of sisig, the modern one is the most culturally visible in the Philippines and the world over. Its invention is attributed to Lucia Cunanan in the 1970s, who ran Aling Lucing, an eatery near the U.S. air base in Pampanga. When U.S. Air Force cooks prepared food for their troops, they discarded the pigs' heads, and resourceful Filipino locals turned them into a dish that is now beloved. Anthony Bourdain believed that sisig would be a major trend, and Gordon Ramsay is a fan, but they aren't the only celebrity chefs who love sisig. Chef Andrew Zimmern is also fond of the dish, and publicly sang praises of Filipino food during an interview with Business Insider, stating, "Their use of acidity, the quality of their food has the best of ... what happens when really good Island Asian food brushes up against Spanish culture." 

So where can you find sisig? Anywhere with a sizable, vibrant Filipino community. According to the Pew Research Center, California has the highest percentage of Filipinos in the U.S. at 38%, and most reside in Los Angeles and San Francisco, so those cities are your best bets for a bite of sisig. If you're on the Eastern side of the U.S., New York City's Pig & Khao serves Thai-Filipino food and is helmed by Leah Cohen, whom you may have seen on "Top Chef." Pig & Khao's sisig has received rave reviews on Yelp, and the restaurant was featured in our list of Asian restaurants you need to try in every state.