Review: Guerrilla Street Food Spins Off Small Brick-and-Mortar Restaurant

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Photography by Kevin A. Roberts

Pancit Palabok: rice noodles, pork and shrimp sauce, shrimp, pork belly, egg, chicarrones, and scallions

Before you can address the 800 Pound Guerrilla in the room, you must accept Plastic Man as your hero. We learned this lesson from a Cardinals fan while recently dining at Guerrilla Street Food.

You’re probably familiar with Guerrilla’s popular Filipino food truck. Five years ago, chef Brian Hardesty (formerly of Harvest, Monarch, Terrene, and Element) and longtime friend Joel Crespo launched it with the aim of revolutionizing how people think about food. Then, last year, the duo set up a fixed base near the intersection of Arsenal and South Grand. The dimly lit interior includes dark wood, along with superhero relics.

Many of the dish names are cartoony caricatures. Aporkalypse Now! Redux is a nacho plate’s journey into the heart of darkness by way of house-made tortilla chips, crisped pork belly, chili-fired pulled pork, and pickled papaya drizzled with a tofu-based faux cheese. But Guerilla also plays it straight with such dishes as the pancit palabok, a riff on a traditional Filipino dish of rice noodles, accented by braised pork belly, the skin crisped into chicharrón; boiled shrimp, sliced green onions, and half of a hard-boiled egg complement the meat. Other traditional Filipino items include lumpia, comprising a crêpe-like wrapper rolled around sautéed green beans, shredded cabbage, and carrots flavored with garlic and peanuts, all served with a tangy sweet dipping sauce. Chicken adobo consists of braised chicken flavored with a tangy soy mixture of garlic, bay leaves, and peppercorns.

The beverage list runs from everyday to exotic. A display fridge is full of Ski and other cane sugar–sweetened sodas from local brewer Excel. One of the beers is a Civil Life blonde ale brewed exclusively for Guerrilla. And among the island concoctions is One Inch Punch, made with black currant juice, pineapple juice, coconut milk, and mint. The juice mixtures are available soft or spiked.

So what does a Cardinals fan have to do with all this? The 800 Pound Guerrilla is the name given to a platter of chicken adobo and a multi-flavored pulled-pork dish called the Flying Pig. While we ate, a guy ordered it, then asked the server to change the channel to that evening’s game.  It wouldn’t have been an unreasonable request, except that the TV was running an obscure cartoon series based on a superhero named Plastic Man. The guy behind the counter smiled and motioned to the dining room, where patrons were glued to the set. Inhaling the intoxicating aromas of Filipino spices, the fan relented, even asking one of the other diners for a Plastic Man primer. The world remained safe for democracy.