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Good Food hat15/20

Serai

Updated ,first published

‘Lechon’ pork belly with banana hot sauce.
1 / 9‘Lechon’ pork belly with banana hot sauce.supplied
Inside Serai.
2 / 9Inside Serai.Supplied
Organic savoy cabbage and roasted garlic.
3 / 9Organic savoy cabbage and roasted garlic.Supplied
Wood roasted pig’s head tacos with egg butter.
4 / 9Wood roasted pig’s head tacos with egg butter.Supplied
Filipino cuisine.
5 / 9Filipino cuisine.Supplied
Abrolhos scallop, crab fat sauce, pandesal.
6 / 9Abrolhos scallop, crab fat sauce, pandesal.Supplied
Selat Lumpia smoked pineapple, spiced coconut, caviar.
7 / 9Selat Lumpia smoked pineapple, spiced coconut, caviar.Supplied
‘Patotim’ Milawa duck.
8 / 9‘Patotim’ Milawa duck.Chris Hopkins
Kingfish served with pork crackling.
9 / 9Kingfish served with pork crackling.Chris Hopkins
Good Food hat15/20

Serai

Filipino$$

A high-energy Pinoy throwdown.

Once you’ve scraped delicately seared kangaroo and marrow from the large beef bone they’re served in, you may be invited to use the bone “like a shoey” to take a shot of fat-washed Filipino rum. That’s the first course of the night.

Wood-roasted pig’s head fills tacos, the crackly pork alive with sour calamansi juice and sweet onion jam. Tender butterflied rainbow trout drenched in palapa butter is sweet, spicy and amped up by the fermented shrimp paste, bagoong. Natural wines keep your palate buzzing. The kitchen’s MVP – the wood grill – scorches cabbage until it resembles a glistening sea creature emerging from the darkest depths to change your perception of the vegetable forever.

Attentive staff bring gin sours capped by pandan-chardonnay foam. Pudding-like cassava cake cooked in banana leaf arrives with smoked-butter ice-cream oozing over the top, a blow-the-speakers finale.

Good to know: Best seats are at the chef’s counter overlooking the kitchen.

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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