Covid definitely caused a lot of issues for restaurants all over the US, but it’s nice to see that some restaurants have survived, and some have even managed to come into fruition! Good Good Culture Club is one of the recently opened ones. It’s by the same restaurant group as the Liho Liho Yacht Club (yeah, there’s a lot of double words in these restaurants), and it’s also showing up on all the lists of San Francisco at the moment. It’s become a popular destination, and apparently it’s also difficult to get into. (Actually, it’s not that difficult: They open their bookings two weeks in advance and if you know when you want to go, just get on their website and book it when your date opens up. It’s how I got a table for four for a Friday night when my parents were visiting.) However, they do also keep some tables available for walk-in, so if you want to try out that route, you can take your chances. I guess there aren’t a lot of modern Filipino restaurants around, so I can see why it would be so busy given the concept.
It was very popular when we arrived, as there were several people milling around outside waiting for tables. Even my booking required a little bit of a wait, but we were quickly shown to our seats. They use the modern “no menus, scan a QR code and order directly from the website” sort of thing, which is great, as long as you don’t have someone with you who doesn’t want to give their personal information away to random websites. Thankfully, they did have paper menus floating around, and I didn’t mind ordering for the table through my phone. They also recommend ordering food in waves, as it does come as it is prepared. We ordered a few cocktails to start as we decided on what dishes to begin with.
For the first round, we decided to get the chips and dip, the crying tiger shrimp and a good good chicken wing for everyone at the table. The chips and dip are fairly straightforward, and the cashew dip it came with had a great burst of flavor. It was so good that people at our table ate most of the dip before the chips were close to being finished. It turns out that for a reasonable surcharge, they will provide you with more dip if you ask, so if you like a lot of dip with your chip, it’s great to know. Everyone loved the shrimp as it had a huge mix of flavor in your mouth, reminding me a lot of the flavor profiles from my favorite Thai restaurant in town. The chicken wings were fun, as they take out the bone and stuff it with sausage, but the sausage flavor was a bit overwhelming, and while enjoyable, felt like something I could have skipped given how good everything else had been so far.
At this point, we also weren’t that excited about our drinks, so we moved on to wine and sake. Sadly, the wine and sake list are a bit lacking, but we managed to find some white wine for my parents and my husband and I split some reasonable sake, but neither were incredibly exciting.
Next, we had the crispy rice ball which was pretty much what you would expect, but the ball is cut in half with some plantain on top. Another really tasty dish. We also had poppyseed buns filled with smoked beef belly. This was really one of my favorites of the night, as the beef was so tender and delicious, but it did arrive slightly cold which was annoying to one person at the table. Finally we had the bone-in pork belly and jewelry rice. The pork belly was another fantastic dish, although they did slice the belly, and I was expecting it whole, but the flavor was so good, I didn’t really care. The rice was absolutely amazing as it is steamed in a banana leaf with corn on top, and they open it at the table and pour on some chili sauce. It was also one of my favorite savory dishes of the night.
Of course, dessert was necessary. And since we couldn’t decide on one, we chose all three: Halo Ha-Lao, Strawberry Crunch Cake, and Pandan Bibingka. The first was a classic shaved ice Halo Halo, but with an amazing mix of fruits and an ube sorbet. This was probably my favorite dessert of the night. My second was the bibingka. I had no idea what we were ordering, but it turns out it was a cake, and an incredibly tasty one at that. Finally, the strawberry cake was nice, and considering it had lemon curd, I was really expecting it to be amazing, but it definitely didn’t compare to the other two dishes. I also ordered one of the dessert cocktails which turned out to be the best drink of the night!
Foodwise, Good Good Culture Club is out of this world. I’m not overly familiar with Filipino food, so it was nice to jump in and try a lot of things. The flavors were really very good overall, and it definitely makes me think about wanting to try more. The service was also really good, as there were servers coming around constantly delivering food and checking in, even though we do all the ordering on the phone. The only disappointment was the cocktail list and the wine list, as I really would love something nicer to go with my meal. I don’t think that would stop me from going back though, and, with a little bit of planning, bookings seem fairly straightforward to get so far, so I’m looking forward to going back to try some of the more unusual dishes involving tripe or pig ears.
Score: 4.5/5
Recommendation: Chips and dip, Jewelry Rice and Halo Ha-Lao!
Good Good Culture Club
3560 18th St
San Francisco, CA 94110
