Perla is built around kamayan, the traditional Filipino style of eating with your hands instead of utensils — the name comes from "kamay," the Tagalog word for hand. Rather than individually plated courses, the meal arrives as one shared spread meant to be dug into directly.
That spread includes sinangag (garlic fried rice), chicken inasal marinated in lemongrass, annatto, and vinegar, and pork liempo, grilled pork belly in a soy-calamansi marinade. Lumpia filled with ground pork, carrots, onions, shiitake, and ginger and a whole fried pompano round things out, alongside ginataan, a coconut-based vegetable dish with eggplant, long beans, cauliflower, squash, and zucchini. Crispy pata, a whole fried pork knuckle, is available for larger parties, and the meal closes with a chocolate coconut budino topped with almonds.
In East Passyunk, the communal format has built a following around generous portions and the shared-table energy of eating a full spread without forks or knives.
That spread includes sinangag (garlic fried rice), chicken inasal marinated in lemongrass, annatto, and vinegar, and pork liempo, grilled pork belly in a soy-calamansi marinade. Lumpia filled with ground pork, carrots, onions, shiitake, and ginger and a whole fried pompano round things out, alongside ginataan, a coconut-based vegetable dish with eggplant, long beans, cauliflower, squash, and zucchini. Crispy pata, a whole fried pork knuckle, is available for larger parties, and the meal closes with a chocolate coconut budino topped with almonds.
In East Passyunk, the communal format has built a following around generous portions and the shared-table energy of eating a full spread without forks or knives.