{"id":261085,"date":"2026-04-10T13:00:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T13:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/261085\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T13:00:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T13:00:31","slug":"the-san-francisco-filipino-restaurant-with-a-hidden-menu-only-regulars-know-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/261085\/","title":{"rendered":"The San Francisco Filipino Restaurant With A Hidden Menu Only Regulars Know About"},"content":{"rendered":"

Filipino food may not be as widespread in the United States as, say, Mexican or Japanese food, but it’s definitely making inroads into the market. You might see a lumpia vendor at a state fair<\/a>, while Jollibee is expanding across the country<\/a>. It’s not all fast food and snacks, either \u2014 the San Francisco Bay area, for example, has dozens of sit-down Filipino restaurants. One of these, Abac\u00e1, is located inside the Kimpton Alton hotel in Fisherman’s Wharf. Its offerings are hardly typical hotel fare, however, since the restaurant is known for a secret menu offering dishes that may appeal to more adventurous eaters.<\/p>\n

Now, this menu isn’t “secret” in the Starbucks sense<\/a>, where you annoy your barista into making some complicated off-menu item you just dreamed up. Instead, it’s actually sanctioned by the restaurant, although not touted on its website. You might need insider knowledge (such as having read a restaurant review) to know to scan a barcode that only appears on the dinner menu. Once you’ve scanned and accessed the menu, though, what will you find? Balut, for one thing. Yes, that terrifying hard-boiled duck fetus<\/a> that you certainly won’t find at Jollibee. At Abac\u00e1, it comes dipped in beer batter and deep-fried, accompanied by fried chicken skin with an egg yolk mousse topping, along with a shot of duck broth served in an eggshell. The secret menu also includes a few other items, including chicharron bulaklak (deep-fried pork connecting tissue), isaw (barbecued pork intestine), balun-balunan (chicken gizzards), and grilled oysters in fish sauce.<\/p>\n

Read more: Beloved Dishes From Every State In The US<\/a><\/p>\n

Abac\u00e1’s main menu offers all three meals\"assorted<\/p>\n

assorted foods on a table at Abac\u00e1 – Abac\u00e1 \/ Facebook<\/p>\n

Unusual for a fine dining establishment, Abac\u00e1 offers breakfast and brunch menus in addition to lunch and dinner ones. The former includes such dishes as pork lumpia in pineapple-chile sauce, bibingka (rice cake) topped with caramelized brie and a salted egg, and silog (garlic-fried rice and fried egg) served with a chorizo-like sausage called longganisa. The dinner menu blends contemporary cuisine with traditional Filipino accents, offering dishes such as stuffed quail with fava bean tinutungan and wagyu dumplings with a tomato-based root vegetable stew called kaldereta.<\/p>\n

Desserts include banana fritters with salted cheese foam and matcha ice cream, as well as sticky rice cakes with chocolate, citrus, and caramel ice cream. For the full Abac\u00e1 experience, there’s even an omakase-type “kamayan” menu costing between $95 and $125 per person. This option allows each diner to experience a wide variety of appetizers, main courses, sides, and desserts, and every dish can be eaten without utensils.<\/p>\n

TripAdvisor reviewers give Abac\u00e1 3.8 stars, while Yelpers award it four. Many reviewers praise the food and the ambiance, but some complain of small portions. Others grumble at the service, and quite a few call out the high prices (such is the state of dining today). Even if it’s not the highest-rated Filipino restaurant in the Bay Area, it’s still one of the few places you’re likely to find balut on the menu (secret or otherwise). If that dish is on your bucket list,\u00a0Abac\u00e1 will let you check it off with no trouble.<\/p>\n

For more food and drink goodness, join The Takeout’s newsletter<\/a> and add us as a preferred search source<\/a>. Get taste tests, food & drink news, deals from your favorite chains, recipes, cooking tips, and more!<\/p>\n

Read the original article on The Takeout<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Filipino food may not be as widespread in the United States as, say, Mexican or Japanese food, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261086,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[113954,82339,8458,114886,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-261085","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-abaca","9":"tag-filipino-food","10":"tag-japanese-food","11":"tag-jollibee","12":"tag-san-francisco","13":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","14":"tag-san-francisco-news","15":"tag-sf","16":"tag-sf-headlines","17":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}