A Filipino style silog rice bowl featuring Hawaii-inspired hula hula chicken

It was only a few months into the pandemic that one of my editors emailed me to suggest our readership must surely be getting tired of covid-era food stories already, and we could move on to other topics. As I check my watch now, four years later, that's certainly truer than ever. That erstwhile era of Instagram delivery services, pop-up grocery stores, and take-home cocktails seems almost cute in retrospect.

Nevertheless, I have to take that backwards look sometimes, because covid's impact continues to churn up stories like the one I recently encountered in Poway, where I followed a steady stream of lunchtime customers into Luna’s Lunpias, an intentionally misspelled and self-described "Filipino Fusion Eatery" that opened in a small strip on Poway Road last fall.

A small counter shop, born out of a home kitchen and quarantine necessity

Turns out, the business was born amid the lost jobs and uncertainty of quarantine, when, in April 2020, the namesake Luna posted a photo of lumpia wrappers to her social channels, announcing, "Place your orders... heehee." Apparently, while the rest of us spent the past couple years throwing away our masks and arguing with AI chatbots, Luna and her family have been steadily growing a business: taking internet orders, establishing a catering operation, popping up at farmers markets and breweries, etc.

Their work has culminated in a small, all-day, counter service restaurant squeezed in among car dealerships and self-storage facilities. It's not a glamourous location, but it does the job well enough that Luna's probably wishing she could fit in a few more tables. Because her shop offers the one thing that's arguably more important to a restaurant's success than hard work: tasty food.

Guests may start spotting the fusion with breakfast items scattered throughout the all day menu — notably a chilaquiles dish made with the Filipino pork belly dish, tocino ($17). But if the world has a better all-day breakfast option than the Filipino garlic rice and egg dish known as silog, I haven't met it. For $13-14, you can get a silog bowl featuring a variety of proteins ranging from Filipino sausage to Hawaiian-style huli huli chicken. It's savory, quite garlicky, and has become a Luna's staple.

Spam musubi, with a panko crusted twist

It's fair to say most of the fusion makes sense, because Luna's mainly sticks to infusing culinary traditions already linked to Filipino culture, historically. On the Mexico side, you wind up with the slightly less weird than they sound lumpia nachos ($12.25), and several tacos filed with traditional Filipino meat dishes including tocino, or the crispy pork belly sisig ($6-7).

Hawaii turns up again in the guise of a smash-burger style loco moco served over garlicky mashed potatoes ($16.25), as sides of macaroni salad, and in the customer favorite spin on musubi, the sushi-like rice and seaweed wrap featuring slices of Spam. Except, here the Spam is fried in a panko crust (a la Japanese tempura) and dressed with unagi eel sauce and spicy mayo (two for $10.25).

Pork belly adobo plate, served with macaroni salad and cucumber salad

If you're not looking for any cross-cultural experimentation, just show up to Luna's Lunpia for the traditional stuff, whether vegetable, pork, or beef lumpia; pancit noodles; or plates highlighting the likes of pork belly or chicken adobo ($15-19). Just avert your gaze from the dessert menu, or you'll wind up spending all your money on a litany of sweets bult around ube, flan, or sweet, banana-filled lumpia. Any of which suggest something better came out of quarantine than home-baked sourdough.