First Bite: Hiyas Modern Filipino Comfort Food

It has been a foodie dream of mine to try all the restaurants in Kapitolyo. But it was difficult as there seem to be a new restaurant that pops out of nowhere every month. A few months back, I was down to my last 5 but now, I think I’m back to 10 or even more! And it gets even more challenging when you’re with people who are not so adventurous with food. But a few weeks back, I was able to convince my family to have a late dinner at Hiyas Modern Filipino Comfort Food.

Hello, Hiyas!

The place screams Filipino with its décor and wall mural. I love it that they have books and board games to keep the diners entertained. I also enjoyed the wait dish—fish balls.

We decided to order the following: Creamy Kalabasa Soup (PHP195), Salmon Sisig (PHP255), Hinuburan na Lumpia (PHP220), Laing (PHP295), Inasal na Manok (PHP195) and Pritong Sorbetes (PHP170).

Service was pretty quick as we were the only diners that time.

My squash soup was creamy and the serving was good for sharing. It was slightly heavy though for an appetizer.

The Hinuburan na Lumpia was yummy. I loved the crunch of the fresh vegetables, crispiness of the vermicelli and the slight roughness of the peanut sauce.

I was excited for my salmon dish but it turned out to be a disappointment. The taste was too “fishy” and it was so salty to the point that I only managed to have two spoonful of the sisig.

The laing was your usual taro leaves with smoked fish and shrimp swimming in coconut milk. Nothing fancy there but it was pretty good as well.

I wasn’t able to try the grilled chicken as my sister didn’t share. (Boo.) But I noticed that there were several burnt parts.

Now for dessert.

The pritong sorbetes sure sounded promising but what was served was disappointing. It was fried ice cream indeed but definitely not sorbetes. The ice cream inside the fried batter was your typical commercial vanilla ice cream. The only sorbetes-ish about it was the ube around the fried ice cream which was more of like a watered ube jam. I really loved the idea but the execution was totally different from expectation. If only they have used ube inside, it might have been more “sorbetes” to me.

Hiyas is located at Ground Floor, D Strip Building, United St., Barangay Kapitolyo, Pasig City.

I fell in love with this one! <3