Gabe’s Home Grown Dishes (Katipunan): Home of the Horseylog, Valencia ala Malabon and many more

Now on it’s second year, Gabe’s Home Grown Dishes continues to serve awesome Filipino comfort food but remains unnoticed. Why? Because of its discrete location in Katipunan. It’s time to expose Gabe’s HGD to the rest of the world.

I absolutely loved their silog dishes, like the Beef Tapsilog (PHP 115), Chicken Longsilog (PHP 115), Longsilog (PHP 100). Apart from the very tender meat, there’s just something different with the taste that makes the dishes special. Also, they serve them with (STAR) Margarine Rice. It totally brought me back to the 90’s when my yaya used to make me STAR Margarine Rice after pre-school, and I would have lunch in front of the TV. Good times, good times.

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Another silog dish is the Horseylog (PHP 115). Yes, you read that correctly. A delicacy in Malabon, the elusive Horse Meat is super rare. It tastes and feels like beef. Just try not to think about it. At least now I can say I’ve tried “horse”.

I’m biased towards the Kare-kare (PHP 200) because I generally love kare-kare, but Gabe’s kare-kare was really good. It was rich and malapot, and you could really taste the ground peanuts, just the way I like it. I wanted more of it, but I had to save space for what was to come.

The Yummy Lechon Kawali (PHP 160) is truly yummy. It was definitely cured first, making it a lot tastier. Think Cebu lechon, except it’s lechon kawali.

The Lengua (PHP 250) was another comfort dish we enjoyed for the creamy mushroom gravy and tender ox tongue. It was really good, much like everything else.

Just when we thought we were done eating, we weren’t. Gabe’s started bringing out their heavy stuff like the juicy Half Pounder (PHP 180) and the creamy Crab Sandwich (PHP 100), which was butter-toasted. Yowza.

Another western comfort food is the Baked Ribs (PHP 190). Its barbecue sauce was really good.

Finally! On to dessert. We had 2 kinds: Fried Oreos ala Mode (PHP 100)–or “Wicked Oreos” to the Ateneans who frequent Flaming Wings–and the Valencia ala Malabon (PHP 80). The Valencia ala Malabon easily won the gold in this entire meal. Stuffed with banana, ube and mongo among other things, the wrapper is deep-fried, sprinkled with brown sugar and served with vanilla ice cream. The combination alone really did it for me. It instantly became my favorite.

I would definitely come back to Gabe’s Home Grown Dishes for ANY of their dishes. They are undoubtedly the best Filipino comfort food I’ve had in forever, and they truly deserve recognition for it. Thanks for the invite!

Who is Gabe?

Come meet the family! The restaurant is owned by Dan Panlilio along with his wife Marian. They have two kids, Gabe and Luke. The actual Gabe is now 4 years old, and he REALLY loves planets. (He memorized two songs about planets.) Marian is from Malabon and Dan is from Pampanga, so a lot of the food have both influences. While they source their food from these places, Mommy fixes it a bit to give it that extra “umph”. Gabe’s had originally opened along White Plains in March 2014, but relocated to Katipunan extension last November 2015.