Tita, Marrickville review

Just inside the front door at Tita, a yolk-hued, lace-curtained, two-month-old Filipino cafe and bakery near Marrickville Station, a full-length mirror is inscribed with “Kahit isang saglit”.

“Have a read of the sign beside it,” a staff member says, pointing to a piece of pink laminated paper on the wall.

“Kahit isang saglit is a song which we dedicate to our late Tita Marlene, who is the inspiration for this restaurant,” it says. “I hope to see you again, feel your heart beat. I hope you hug me again, just a little bit. Even for a moment, to embrace you. This is a reminder to hug your loved ones, or just call them if they are far away.”

On a sunny Thursday morning at Tita, run by Christopher Palamara, Kenneth Rodrigueza and Karen Rodrigueza-Labuni, also known for their Redfern shop Donut Papi, there is much hugging.

A friend of the owners has brought her grown-up daughters to eat the food of her home country.

“You have to have the ube sundae,” she says, pointing excitedly at the menu’s purple coloured yam-flavoured soft-serve ice-cream with caramel fudge and shortbread biscuit crumbs.

Rodrigueza, who grew up in Quezon City in the Philippines and previously ran the cafe-bakery Gluten-Free Friends on the same site with sister Rodrigueza Labuni and Palamara, says his Tita (aunty) Marlene was a particularly special person.

“We have this certain kind of Tita in the Philippines,” he says. “Quite blunt, nosy, gossipy. Tita Marlene was not like that. She was a lesbian, very chill, relaxed and modern, not going to judge you and very understanding.

“We hung out with her every weekend and she inspired us with her cooking and her generosity.”

Tita is a carinderia, a commonly seen streetside or open-air eating spot in the Philippines serving breakfast or lunch in pop-up gazebos with tables and chairs on the curb.

It’s more upmarket here with a large kitchen, ceiling-high shelving featuring Filipino snacks, knick-knacks and Tita merchandise, and glass counter cabinets of baked daily cakes and bread.

But, inside and outside, there are round and square tables covered in bright floral plastic-coated tablecloths. Decor includes “Good Morning” cotton tea towels, regularly sold in the Philippines, shiny cans of spam, dry peas and corned beef, flatweave shopping bags, family photos and hanging strips of instant “brown coffee” and lemon Tang sachets.

“It’s bright, a little bit tacky, it’s how they do it in the Philippines,” Rodrigueza says. Food, ordered at the counter, begins with pandesal, a soft, traditional Filipino bread, filled with egg, cheese and hash browns, longganisa (house-made pork sausage) or a vegan version, all with lush and tangy banana ketchup.

Takeaway orders are brisk for milk bun brekky rolls, filled variously with fried egg, bacon, melted cheese, spam, mustard relish, mayonnaise, hash brown and longganisa. The heartier Filipino breakfasts, best eaten at the easy wipe tables, include tapsilog (tapa – beef strips – marinated in soy sauce and garlic); patty longsilog (paprika, garlic and pepper-spiced sausage); salty sweet garlic tocilog (pork belly made with a char siu marinade) and Tita torta, an eggplant omelette with banana ketchup.

It is a joy to scoop the char siu tocilog’s glistening strips of sticky deep pink pork belly through garlicky fried rice topped with slabs of sunny side-up fried egg and a sprinkling of atchara, pickled green papaya with thinly sliced vegetables.

Staff suggest a sparing shake of fish sauce, soy sauce or spiced vinegar, all available in glass condiment jugs. The vinegar is best for longsilog and tapsilog. Order a fat mini-loaf of Filipino cheese bread, or a pillowy, buttery pandesal bun, both available in the counter cabinet, to sweep up the juices.

Tita’s bakery smarts also include soft and dainty pan de coco, yeast buns filled with sweetened grated coconut, a purple ube Basque cheesecake, golden stubble-crunched butter crumb doughnuts and moss green pandan madeleines.

Wash them down with an icy sweet Manila latte, made with vanilla, condensed milk and Gabriel coffee, or lick the psychedelic purple, sweet-but-savoury swirls of the ube soft-serve, a longtime topping in Filipino dessert halo-halo.

“When we started, 95 per cent of our customers were Filipino,” Rodrigueza says. “But now it’s just about everybody. The inner west, they’re just excited to try new things.”