Nickie Rodica worries that Ruby’s Fast Food, the name on the simple green-and-red sign outside his family’s restaurant, might give the impression that the tiny storefront specializes in hot dogs and pizza puffs. “If you just walked by you might just assume it’s regular fast food,” he says.
Ruby has a repertoire of more than 120 dishes, any one of which might make an appearance on the steam table on a given day. You might find soy-and-vinegar-braised beef, pork, chicken, or squid adobo; stewy peanut-sauced beef and tripe kare-kare; chunks of lechon kawali, deep-fried pork belly; fried whole mackerel; ginisang amaplaya, bitter melon sauteed with pork, tofu, and scrambled eggs; or pakbet (aka pinakbet), a vegetable medley cooked with pork fat and shrimp paste.
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“My mom would be making pots of food for the neighborhood, for those who didn’t have time to cook,” says Nickie. “Every street pretty much had their own little kiosks. But people from other neighborhoods would go to ours.”
Ruby maintains control of the many stew-based dishes, such as the adobos, kare-kare, or the thick, offal-rich, beef blood dinuguan, “because we don’t want to screw with them,” says Nickie.
