Filipino Cuisine Elevated

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Quiza Nichols loves to cook—and for a large number of people. Her husband Neil served in the Army and Quiza often prepared meals for about 20 of his buddies. 

“I used to say I was cooking for the Army,” Quiza says. “I just like feeding people, and I cook fast.”

Quiza, a Philippines native, would even cook for more people at parties she and her husband hosted: for up to 100 guests. It would take five hours to cook all the food on the same day for the event. 

Those skills eased the way to opening Lasang Pinoy, a fine-dining Filipino restaurant in Westfield Annapolis Mall, which is located near the big food court and just inside entrance two. 

Quiza, whose parents owned a restaurant in the Philippines she worked in growing up, owns the establishment and cooks about 25 percent of the time while Neil works as the general manager. A consistent presence in local media, with help from daughter Taylor, helps attract customers to a restaurant that opened in June of 2023. 

To learn more, we sat down with the Nichols, residents of Bowie, to discuss Lasang Pinoy.

Quiza, what makes your place unique and how do you attract customers from around the region? I don’t know of any Filipino fine dining place in Maryland. If we were going to open a place, it had to be something different and not a to-go shop. The restaurant is a brand-new concept and it had never been done here before, in Maryland. We are the first fine-dining Filipino restaurant. These are rare. We Filipinos are underrepresented in a way. Filipinos are very tight with their money. They are frugal. No one would go out and take the risk. Everybody is comfortable with the small to-go type of eateries.

You will find Filipino food places in the back of a grocery store. A customer from San Francisco came in and told us they have a lot of Filipino places there, but they are like to-go eateries. That’s why we regularly get customers from Dover Downs and Pennsylvania because we are the closest fine dining place. We also had 30 people who came in from Deep Creek, Maryland. 

Tell us about your emotions when the restaurant opened.  I was just so excited. It’s my passion to feed people and I have always wanted to own a restaurant since I was little. I have been cooking since I was in grade school. We use my recipes. It’s how we made things in the Philippines. These are all classic dishes. You eat them every day, so you have to know how to cook this stuff. 

What is your No. 1 selling item? It is Pancit. It’s a rice-noodle dish that is wok-fried with vegetables and your choice of meat. You don’t have to have meat in it. It has oyster sauce, soy sauce, salt, and pepper in it. It tastes wonderful.

What else is popular with the customers? Adobo, which is one of our classic dishes. It’s an entree and you can have it with pork or chicken. It’s served over white rice. We cook it with soy sauce, vinegar, salt, and pepper. Sometimes, we use fish sauce to make it saltier tasting. A lot of people look for the sourness in it. It does explode in your mouth if you are looking for sweet and sourness. Other popular items are Piniritong Isda, a whole fried red snapper with mango sauce, and Chicken Inasal, which marinated in lemongrass and baked. 

 Neil, what was the search like when opening a new restaurant? We looked at places in Bowie and Crofton but couldn’t find anything suitable. Annapolis just made sense with the concentration of active duty and veterans, along with the large number of Filipinos in the medical staffing field in the area. It just seemed like a great idea. And we were planning a more elevated restaurant. All those things played into it.

Talk about how you zeroed in on your location within the Westfield Annapolis Mall. We considered the old Applebee’s building in front of the mall. There was another place—the old Brass Tap bar and restaurant—on the other side of the mall that just didn’t seem to fit with what we wanted. With the place we are in now, it has the size and open-look kitchen concept we liked.

Bistek

Bistek is thinly sliced premium steak braised in a mixture of citrus, soy sauce, onions, and garlic.

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds top round, sirloin, or flank steak, sliced thinly
  • 2 lemons, juiced (about 1/4 cup) or use calamansi 
  • 1/4 cup soy sauce 
  • 1 onion, peeled and sliced thinly
  • 1 head garlic, peeled and minced
  • 1/4 teaspoon pepper
  • 3 tablespoons oil
  • Water as necessary (1 cup water if you want some sauce)
  • Salt to taste
  • 1 additional onion peeled and sliced into rings

In a bowl, mix lemon juice, soy sauce, sliced onions, garlic, and pepper. Mix this marinade into the meat and marinate for about 30 minutes. In a pan over high heat,

heat oil, add onions and garlic, and cook, stirring regularly, until softened. Add beef and cook for about 3 to 5 minutes per side or until lightly browned. Add water as necessary and season with salt to taste. Garnish with onion rings sauteed in the drippings from the bistek and serve hot.

Lasang Pinoy | 1000 Annapolis Mall, Space 187, Annapolis | 443-949-9580  |  lasangpinoyllc.com