Discover a rising cuisine at Cutting Board Filipino Gastropub, Las Vegas

(Roberta Deen) This well-received addition to the growing Las Vegas Filipino restaurant scene is visible from Highway 95 in North Las Vegas at Lake Mead Boulevard.  Cutting Board Filipino Pub opened in the spring of 2016 to bring sophisticated, popular Filipino cuisine to Las Vegas.

It is well worth a visit.  I’ve passed its stand-out white exterior many times, wondering what it would serve. Like most people, the only Filipino food I had experienced before was lumpia (similar to an eggroll).

The food and the atmosphere compared to a typical “turn to” Filipino establishment www.turoturo.co.nz/what-is-filipino-food.html. Cambodian hostess Tiffany Le’s cheerful, warm welcome into the airy restaurant immediately makes you feel embraced into the family.  This is quite a feat –  the open, light, airy and comfortable space that includes a parquet dance floor, karaoke, and a D.J. Booth is a whopping 5,918-square foot space.  And it isn’t even finished yet.

The full bar offers exotic cocktails such as Calamansi Crush (ginger, lemongrass vodka, elderflower liquor and calamansi orange juice).  Popular  Mojitos are prepared with mango, lychees or calamansi.

Diners enter the dining room past planters of both common and Filipino herbs, all of which are incorporated into the menu.

The spacious dining room offers many menu choices and in seating (industrial-style common tables, family tables, four tops, two tops) and on the menu. Cutting Board is definitely a pub with its five widescreen televisions (sports and beer especially on the weekends) and its colorful bar.

The menu, illustrated with color photos, covers a selection of up-scaled street and family foods from some of the 7,000 islands which comprise the Philippines.

The Tapas (appetizers) are a good way to slide into the cuisine. They range from the familiar Lumpianitas (miniature lumpia of pork and vegetables deep-fried) and the Chicken Lettuce Wrap (minced chicken, water chestnuts, and mango hoisin sauce) to the exotic Escargot in Spicy Coco Sauce. Most are more than sufficient to serve 2-4 friends and range from $3 to $12.

The Signature Dishes illustrate global-urban influences that have melded to form Filipino cuisine. Chicken Adobo, Arroz a la Cubana, Oxtail Kare Kare, Black Mussels in Lemongrass Pesto take the diner all over the world.

On our visit, we tasted dishes closer to the home islands: Crispy Lechon Kawali (deep-fried pork belly with a vinegary cabbage salad and a house-made dipping sauce) and Bangus Sisig (a whole boneless milkfish, brined, deep-fried, the skin removed to a sizzling cast iron plate, the meat diced and tossed with a vinegar-mayo sauce, stuffed back into the crisp and charred skin, served with cabbage-mango salad).

All the items on the Cutting Board menu were intriguing. They range from $9-$20 and are very generous portions.  There is also a Longganisa American Kobe Burger, several Pancit (egg noodles) dishes and soups, Casa Rices and “Gastro Sides”– garlic baguette slices, fried plantains, Garlic Fries with Truffle salt and Wok-Tossed Green Beans.

Desserts can be dramatic. You could choose the Bibingka Souffle or the Coconut Halo Halo.

 

But for us, it had to be Gloria Escobar’s (or “Momma Glo” as they call her) specialty – the vibrant purple sweet potato Ube Souffle. Gloria uses no flour to achieve this high-rise soufflé. When delivered to the table in all its glorious violet hues, you break it open, add a mini pitcher of purple ube sauce with a side miniature cube of ube cake topped with toasted coconut. This is the Instagram moment.

If you are a local or a visitor from out of town ready for a break from The Strip, it is well worth the short drive to Cutting Board Filipino Gastropub.  Owned by Tiffany Le, Jennifer and Gloria Escobar.   Tiffany has also been owner/president of Fort McKinley Restaurant and Bar located in South San Francisco since 2012. For more information, photographs and menu, please see the Cutting Board website at www.cuttingboard.vegas.For more information, photographs and menu, please see the Cutting Board website at www.cuttingboard.vegas.

Cutting Board Filipino Gastropub, 2131 Rock Springs Drive, Las Vegas, 89928. 702.233.9838.