This country service station is home to some of the most exciting food in NSW

Sydney Morning Herald

07-07-2025

On a late Sunday afternoon, the LED sign for Tambayan Grill & Filipino Store is glowing bright. A television is blaring Filipino songs (the catchy Lola Amour's Raining in Manila as we walk in) and karaoke microphones are at the ready. The plastic rattan-style chairs will be familiar to anyone who dined in at a Caltex in the 1990s; the grocery section is stocked with snacks, sauces, spices and sweets from the homeland; freezers are full of longganisa sausages, pork tail and milkfish.
Owner-chef Jonathan Manglinong hails from the Ilocos region of the Philippines, just north of Manila, and is largely self-taught in the professional kitchen (aside from a stint at The Star when he was studying nursing). He credits his knowledge of traditional techniques and cooking to his parents. Filipino flavours flow between the salty, sour and sweet. Fish sauce for the umami hit; vinegar or calamansi for the sour; sugar and coconut milk for sweetness. Balancing these flavours can be a precise operation and Manglinong nails the brief.
He found himself opening a restaurant in Goulburn when he and his partner, Gil Sagmayao, relocated to the town in search of lower property prices. The dream was to open a Filipino grocer, but when the available shop space came with a kitchen, he went all in, leaving behind a nursing career to have a crack at running a restaurant.
The menu features, most notably, tuna panga. Made with tuna collar sourced from Sydney Fish Market, Manglinong believes Tambayan Grill might be the only place in Australia serving the dish. A hunky collar is baked then grilled, and basted with a mixture of oyster sauce, black pepper, spices, sugar and vinegar. It's available in small, medium and large – depending on the day's catch – and the meat is rich in collagen with a mouthfeel similar to lamb shanks. It's a visceral and almost primal affair as you tear meaty flesh from fish bone.