A native of the Philippines who moved to Las Vegas from Washington, D.C., in 2006, Salome “Oming” Pilas saw something missing while dining at local Filipino restaurants.
“How can Americans or other non-Filipinos know all about Thai, Japanese, Chinese food, and we all go to those restaurants? Why don’t I see non-Filipinos in these Filipino restaurants?” Pilas says. “I wanted to introduce this food to them. My goal was to show all these [different] people that this is really good food.”
Pilas launched the Oming’s Kitchen food truck eight years ago, serving up what locals of all different backgrounds have unanimously declared is really good food—mainly 24-hour marinated meats like chicken and pork belly grilled sinugba-style and lacquered with a house-made garlic-and-soy barbecue sauce, accompanied by addictively crispy lumpia filled with pork and vegetables dipped in sweet chili sauce.
“It was really the three things I love to eat,” Pilas says. “And who doesn’t like lumpia?”
Three years ago, the first Oming’s Kitchen restaurant opened as part the early wave of interesting eateries along Blue Diamond Road, and before the year ends, a second restaurant should open for business near Sahara and Nellis. The truck also still hits the streets for catering and special events.
Pilas got her start in the kitchen while working as a cashier, waitress and supervisor at a D.C. diner. “I thought it was so cool to see them flipping burgers, so I asked the cooks when things were slow if I could help out. It just became a passion.”
Despite a seemingly simplistic approach, she’s equally passionate about spreading her style of Filipino cooking to a bigger, broader audience—a dream that has become a reality in Las Vegas.
The restaurant has enabled an expansion on the original truck menu, but Pilas is really just taking requests. When diners asked for the ubiquitous adobo, a soy and vinegar-based marinade for slow-cooked meats, she developed a recipe that could be made fresh to order instead of a big pot of chicken hustled out to a buffet steam tray. The result is Oming’s wildly popular adobo beef ($13), which uses shaved ribeye, inspired by the classic Philly cheesesteak. You won’t find it anywhere else in town.
Oming’s continues to serve those pork and chicken sinugba bowls with rice ($11-$15), along with the necessary sisig pork hash ($13) and pancit rice noodles ($9), and lechon is sold whole or by the pound on weekends. But call ahead if you want some for you own crispy pork party: Pilas is going through about 40 pounds per week, and “it’s always sold out.”
That’s what happens when food truck word-of-mouth spreads around the Valley—a burgeoning Filipino food empire.
OMING’S KITCHEN 5180 Blue Diamond Road #105, 702-722-3171, omingskitchen.com. Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m.; Sunday, 10 a.m.-7 p.m.
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