When you think of Chamorro culture, what comes to mind? One may think about dance, music or close family bonds. But what always brings everyone together is the food.
Chamorro cooking is how your nana shows her love, the food is what you eat with your friends, and the fiesta table is what brings whole families, and even villages together.
This Mes Chamorro, celebrate by dining at some of Guam’s best Chamorro restaurants, and support local businesses.
The Cafeteria
Try out the 2015 winners for best breakfast in Pika's Best. The Harmon eatery’s Guam history-themed fried rice dishes are some of the most popular.
Matapang fried rice includes hot link sausages, spicy Chamorro sausages and chorizo Españot, with two eggs on the side. Magellan fried rice has ham mixed in, with three slices of Portuguese sausage on the side and two eggs.
Their chorizo dinanche fried rice is made with in-house, freshly made chorizo and their signature dinanche.
“People who order this one, they already love to eat spicy, so they tell me it’s not so spicy,” says owner Aileem Cruz.
Their best Chamorro lunch options include the ground beef tinaktak, kaddon pika, chicken estufao and bistek Chamorro. The a la carte style meal comes with red rice, white rice, fried rice or garlic fried rice, and a side of japchae, coconut milk corn soup, potato salad or garden salad.
For the ultimate Chamorro dining experience, Cruz says the restaurant serves free ahu, or young coconut sweet soup, for dine-in customers.
You also can enjoy your lunch with live Chamorro music from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. daily, with singers like Josh Catahay or the band Mixed Plate.
Meskla Chamoru Fusion Bistro
The Chamorro fusion restaurant in Hagåtña carries a wide variety of meaty meals.
The beef tinaktak comes with eggplant green beans, cherry tomatoes, traditional coconut cream soup, salad and your choice of starch — red rice, white rice, or fried corn titiyas.
The tinala katni appetizer comes with titiyas and their famous dinanche.
For more spicy goodness, try their dinanche-glazed pork chop, which is brushed with a local-style pepper mash and served with mushroom cream sauce on top as well as your choice of starch and a small salad.
To try out a little bit of everything from the winners of Pika's Best Chamorro Food, check out their Sunday Brunch which features keleguens, barbecues, red rice and more.
Terry’s Local Comfort Food
For a complete taste of Chamorro cuisine, try out the fiesta plate at Terry’s in Tumon.
“Our most popular dish and the most sought-after is the fiesta plate,” says Terry’s owner Tessie Bordallo. “It’s traditionally what you would get going down the fiesta line.”
The meal includes barbecue or fried chicken, barbecue spareribs, pancit, shrimp patties, chicken kelaguen, red rice and of course, fina’denne’.
“It would be a sin without fina’denne’ with most local dishes,” Bordallo says.
For appetizers to share, she recommends the kelaguen platter, which comes with three types of kelaguen: chicken, shrimp and beef.
Bordallo’s personal favorite dish is the chop steak.
“I always let customers know when they have local chop steak, it’s different from Chinese-style chop suey,” she says. “Ours is cooked in high heat quickly, and not soaking in the pot. The vegetables are al dente and nice and seasoned in there.”
Terry’s also serves non-meat options for the Lenten season this month, with parrot fish, mahi-mahi and grilled salmon.
Pika’s Cafe
For Pika’s Cafe breakfast, it’s all about Chamorro sausage.
The restaurant is well-known for its Benedict Chamorro, which is eggs Benedict with Chamorro sausage. They also serve the local meat in fried rice and breakfast burritos.
Pika’s Chamericano is especially scrumptious, with Chamorro sausage, cheddar cheese, red potatoes, scrambled eggs, laña sauce — or a donne’ aioli mix — and a side of salsa.
But what brings people near and far to Pika’s is the tinaktak burger.
The specialty features a coconut milk-coated beef patty with local string beans, roasted tomatoes, balsamic onions and laña sauce. The Pika's Best Deli winner also offers a salmon version, for those avoiding meat during Lent.
Proa Restaurant
The Pacific Rim cuisine restaurant is best known for its barbecue hands down, says the Hagåtña location manager Vincent Mendiola.
Proa serves chicken, short ribs and spare ribs plates with a single meat, or the big feller trio, which includes all three options. The meal includes red or white rice and house salad with a garlic chili vinaigrette, which balances the sweetness of the barbecue sauce.
“Our red rice is just like how grandma makes it,” says Mendiola. “Our barbecue glaze is definitely fit for the local palette. It’s very familiar, but distinguishable amongst other local barbecue so you can tell it’s our own.”
The restaurant offers daily specials which change even between lunch and dinner, with local flare, like their own take on tinaktak.
This article originally appeared on Pacific Daily News: Biba Mes Chamorro: Top Chamorro restaurants on Guam
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