From grilled chicken and skewers to woozy Technicolor desserts, Kalye Filipino Streats faithfully channels the urban flavours of the Philippines.
Filipino$
“You’ll get punched if you don’t pay!!”
Maybe it’s just me, but these aren’t seven words that I generally want to hear when I go out for dinner. But, just this once, I think I can let it slide.
You’ll spy the above among the sentences and words spray-painted on the walls at Kalye Filipino Streats: a compact, glass-encased diner that opened in May inside Northbridge’s Williams Lane. Half of the restaurant’s 30 seats are shoehorned into the dining room along with vintage movie flyers, Manny Pacquiao posters and Jollibee plush toys. The rest of the tables and chairs go out in the laneway and become part of the communal mess hall that energises the thoroughfare most nights.
It’s worth noting that not all this graffiti reads like dialogue from a Guy Ritchie movie. Some passages come across as almost philosophical. (“Don’t go looking for what isn’t there.“) Others such as “do not urinate here” are more pragmatic. (Kalye owners Ardlee Indoy and Eloise Bayaras, I’m sure, would love it if you asked staff for a key to the shared toilets.)
Equally notable is the key detail that most of this graffiti is written in Tagalog, as are the dishes on the concise menu. Diners also order and pay before the kitchen starts cooking, so there’s little chance of wolfing down some charry inasal (grilled chicken thigh) and doing a runner. Which suddenly reframes promises to bash freeloaders as less threat and more set-dressing inspired by the urban centres and culture of the Philippines as well as the dishes that keep these streets moving. (And yes, “Streats” is a Brangelina-esque combo of “street” and “eats”.)
These “streats” are also things that Indoy, Kalye’s chef, remembers eating in Manilla before moving to Perth as a teen. Although Indoy occasionally dabbled with homegrown flavours while working in modern Asian kitchens in Perth – the longanissa sang choy bao and kinilaw from the opening menu of Apple Daily, say, or Low Key Chow House’s bicol pork stew – it wasn’t until he and Bayaras started their Luma pop-ups that his cooking could go full Filipino.
But whereas Luma was Indoy’s chance to modernise classic dishes and flavours, Kalye’s primary concern is faithfully recreating the bold, immediate flavours of Filipino street food. So vast, golden fingers of bagnet (triple-cooked pork belly) are all fatty, porcine hedonism; the kwek-kwek (a hard-boiled egg battered in a golden comet-like cornflour shell) is pleasingly crunchy; while coconut vinegar lends a mellow roundness to the atsara pickle of shredded papaya, onion and capsicum that helps cut through all that meaty richness. Respite is also at hand via the quietly brilliant lumpia sariwa: sauteed vegetables wrapped burrito-style in a soft wheat crepe and something of a sleeper dish.
Like any self-respecting Asian street food restaurant, Kalye’s offering includes meat-on-sticks with the best being the pork BBQ (unctuous pork neck marinated in pineapple juice) and the hakkdog which is basically a skewered frankfurter. The Adidas, meanwhile, consists of two small, chewy red-hued chicken’s feet on a stick. (The name is a reference to the foot’s resemblance to the shoe company’s famous trefoil logo.) If you don’t already love chicken’s feet, this isn’t likely to sway your opinion.
Desserts also have the potential to confuse some diners, not least when it comes to the halo-halo: a woozy, calorific Technicolor caldera of shaved ice moistened with condensed milk and surrounded by coconut jelly, sweetened beans, candied plantains and other sweet-savoury things that you mix together. One halo-halo is more than enough for a table and is a joyous way to maintain that more-is-more momentum right through to the finish. A more restrained approach, though, would be to order the flan solo and admire the custard’s density and richness without distraction
Filipino food isn’t exactly unknown in Perth. I first encountered lechon (roast pork) at Spencer Village’s dearly departed Mama Chedeng while the RoyAl’s crew’s Lola’s Filipino Diner was where I had my first boodle fight.
But Kalye is a different kind of Filipino restaurant: an insouciant, owner-operated business awash with post-Munchies swagger that, locally, is to Filipino food what Magnolia BBQ and North 54 are to Nusantara and Vietnamese cuisine respectively.
It won’t be everyone’s cup of milk buko pandan. Maybe you like going to places that accept bookings. Maybe you prefer cooking that demonstrates light and shade. (The current line-up, in addition to having few options for vegetarians, does little to counter the argument that Filipino food generally leans sweet.)
Maybe you like your menus a little more user-friendly. While the all-Filipino staff can help decode dishes, those that aren’t fluent in Tagalog would benefit from having smartphones at hand when studying the carte – maybe even with this review bookmarked and ready to go!
But while the above will deter some, others will regard these attributes as more pro than con. That seems to be the case with the steady flow of Filipino families I spied trickling in and out of Kalye for a mid-week dinner. Maybe it’s just me, but all these diners seemed pleased as punch that, even if just for a moment, this small pocket of William Street looked, felt and tasted like home.
The low-down
Atmosphere: an insouciant, uncompromising Filipino street food diner opened for and by the community.
Go-to dishes: lumpia sariwa ($9), halo-halo ($16).
Drinks: sweet house-made Filipino beverages including bottomless pineapple sodas. BYO available.
Cost: about $80 for two people, excluding drinks.
Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.
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Max Veenhuyzen is a journalist and photographer who has been writing about food, drink and travel for national and international publications for more than 20 years. He reviews restaurants for the Good Food Guide.
