Pancit bihon guisado (Pat Padua)

Intrepid foodies staggering out of the Columbia Heights Metro in search of Filipino cuisine now have an enviable decision to make: Go west to Mount Pleasant Street for Purple Patch? Or east to 11th Street and the long-anticipated Bad Saint?

Named for Saint Malo, Louisiana, the first permanent settlement of FiIipinos in the U.S., Bad Saint was poised to become the first Filipino restaurant in D.C. in decade. It was already in the works—but suffering delays—when Purple Patch opened up to sate the neighborhood’s Filipino-curious. Diners will inevitably travel in both directions; since I have written already about the delicacies in the West, let me tell you about the East.

Get there early. Bad Saint is a cozy space that accommodates only 25 guests at a time; if you arrive mid-evening, you may have to wait hours for a seat. On a rainy Monday night, a line formed immediately upon the restaurant’s opening. Get there at 5:30 if you can.

Order drinks. Bad Saint features Filipino-inspired cocktails like the Balisong, a kind of tropical Manhattan with rye, bittermans tepache, coconut liquer, and carpano antica. It’s an inventive and deceptively potent cocktail, much like those at co-owner Nick Pimentel’s Room 11. I don’t recommend getting drinks up the street while you’re waiting for a seat at Bad Saint, or you’re likely to fall off your stool.

Get an appetizer. It’s not listed as such, but lumpiang shanghai, aka Filipino egg rolls, is a staple of restaurants from grocery store kitchens like Manila Mart to the nouveau Filipino of New York’s Maharlika. I haven’t had lumpia yet that compares to what my mom used to make, but Bad Saint’s slim fried pork and beef rolls are good examples of the form and even better dipped in the Filipino vinegar supplied.

Get more entrees than you think you’ll need. Unless you’re one of Washington’s up and coming supermodels, you will want to try as much as you can, and the portions are for the most part nouveau-sized. My party of three sampled four dishes. Pancit Bihon Guisado is chef Tom Cunanan’s take on the rice noodles (that’s the bihon part—look for it at your local Filipino market) that are another Filipino staple, and it’s unlike any I’ve had before. The subtle but surprising difference is flakes of dried ginger that emit little bursts throughout a lemon oil-flavored plate.

Inihaw na Liempo is a delicious dish of pork belly marinated in tamarind and garnished with acharra, pickled green papaya. You get four small but intensely flavorful squares of pork belly to a plate, when what you really want to do is inhale a half-slab’s worth.

Inasal na Manok is a plate of perfectly-grilled chicken served on a bed of heirloom purple rice, a nutty and mildly savory carb that goes wonderfully with pieces of chicken dipped in tangy Filipino vinegar.

Inihaw na Panga ng Tambakol (Pat Padua).

Finally, there is the Inihaw na Panga ng Tambakol, tuna jaw grilled in soy and calamansi (a kind of Filipino lemonade). This is at once the most physically challenging and intensely flavored dish we tried. You have to navigate your way through and underneath a remarkable bone structure, and once you get to the meat of the jaw its flavor is so powerful and delicious that you’ll forget that your Filipino parents grossed you out when they’d suck the meat from a fish head.

Get dessert. Bilo bilo is a sticky rice pudding with peaches, a generous portion that will warm you up as the temperatures start to drop.

Go to the bathroom. The walls are papered with enlargements Pimentel made of his Filipino punk zine collection. Mixtapes of Pinoy punk were offered as a premium during the restaurant’s Kickstarter campaign, and I hope to hear some of that in the restaurant soon. If you can peer around the heads of your fellow diners you’ll want to explore the rest of the space’s decor, which includes family pictures, a shelf of reading material, and Filipino arts and crafts.

Bad Saint’s limited space means they only host groups of four or less, which makes it a great new place to take a date. But if it’s a first date, you might not want to get the Inihaw na Panga ng Tambakol, or at least hope that your date thinks that the ability to suck meat out of a tuna jaw in a public place is an endearing asset.

Bad Saint is located at 3226 11th Street NW.
Hours: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday from 5:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. and Fridays and Saturdays from 5:30 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. Closed Tuesdays.