Oakland Restaurant Week
Senor Sisig
330 17th St., Oakland
The Kon-Tiki
347 14th St., Oakland
According to a viral Bay Area weather meme, by mid-March, we were firmly in the midst of “Second Winter” — it was cold and dreary, with breaks of deceptively milder moments that epitomize the “Fools Spring” to follow. Maybe that’s why my inaugural Oakland Restaurant Week experience this year led me far away from the Town, at least in spirit. If I couldn’t fly away to more tropical destinations, I’d travel there gastronomically. Destination: The Filipino flavors at Senor Sisig, and tropical drinks and classic smashburgers at The Kon-Tiki, both in downtown Oakland.
At any roadside stand in the Philippines, you can pull up a plastic stool on a hot, sticky night, order a San Miguel beer, and chow down on a sizzling, meaty platter of sisig, a dish beloved by locals (and Anthony Bourdain). Traditionally, it’s chopped-up pig face with onions, cooked on long, oval platters delivered straight from the fire to your table, served with a tidy mound of rice and accoutrements like lime or calamansi juice, soy sauce, and chili peppers. In the Bay Area, which has one of the highest concentrations of Filipinos in the U.S., sisig has been served in various permutations — traditional, vegan-style, or as a fusion with other international cuisines.
In the case of Senor Sisig, this dish comes folded into another local favorite— the San Francisco burrito (or, if you like fries, San Diego-style). Senor Sisig has become a hometown success story, cultivating their take on Filipino-style tacos and burritos from food trucks into brick-and-mortars. But for Oakland Restaurant Week, they went more traditional. A friend and I pulled up metal stools near the large windows lining their brightly-lit, fast-casual space downtown.
My vegan friend ordered the tofu burrito, and I chose a Restaurant Week special, the lechon kawali — another traditional Philippine dish, featuring deep-fried pork belly cut up in chunks, its crispy skin encasing layers of tender fat and succulent meat. What can I say? Filipinos love their pork. With a side of rice, corn tortillas, pickled onions, and two dipping sauces (one a blend of peppery spices and the other slightly sweet and tangy), the dish was my weekend treat, a nostalgia-inducing respite from rainy Oakland. The hearty portion transported me to childhood visits to my parents’ homeland, where the sticky kinetic energy of Southeast Asian cities and towns somehow makes fried meats and tropical humidity the most perfect pairing ever. Paired with a margarita, my soul was quietly giddy with nostalgia. I was a 14-hour flight from Manila, but felt some island vibes all the same.
The weekend took me from one island vibe to another — so to speak. The following night we reconvened to enjoy the gaudy vibrance at The Kon-Tiki, a tropical-themed bar and restaurant, blocks from Senor Sisig. Calling itself “a tropical oasis in the heart of downtown,” The Kon-Tiki is a quintessential experience awash in fruit-soaked rum drinks, cheeky cocktails with tiny umbrellas, and island-themed everything — Hawaiian shirts, a thatched-roof bar, and mid-century island kitsch to the max.
That Saturday night played host to The Greasy Gills, a local surf-rock band featuring a young trio of hipsters playing speedy, reverb-drenched guitar riffs and upbeat tempos drenched in the kind of ‘60s instrumental music that epitomizes the sound — spaghetti western instrumentals meets “Hawaii Five‑0” nostalgia. Several patrons in Hawaiian shirts and tropical dresses packed the dimly-lit bar to enjoy the band, but we’d also come to eat.
For Oakland Restaurant Week, The Kon-Tiki offered its double smash burger with fries and a Mai Tai, an unexpectedly tropical duo. Two four-ounce beef patties, flattened on the plancha to create that crispy sear, a slathering of Maui onion jam melding with melted American cheese and thick pickle slices, the hint of sweetness from the potato bun — it was a greasy delight that helped balance out the strong cocktails that got us a bit sozzled. The fries were a bit of a miss — skinny in the classical, fast food style, but lacking in crispiness and salt.
Their Mai Tai was a tropical cocktail in the classic vein, albeit a bit rote — a hastily assembled rendering of rum, lime juice, and crushed ice in a wide, squat glass rather than a tropical-themed mug. It was fruity and fun in spirit, but a little limp in flavor. It didn’t quite transport me. My friend ordered a second cocktail, another fruit-based special, which was redolent of banana and rum, with tall slices of banana chips and adorned with a little “Tiki lamp” (two cocktail umbrellas encasing a tiny light inside). This cocktail delivered on fruitiness and flavor, and was adorably frivolous, a silly prop jewel for a frothy, frenetic jewel of a night.
