Pulutan
Filipino bar food — savory snacks and small plates meant to be eaten alongside drinks, usually beer, during a casual gathering.
Pulutan (from "pulot," to pick up) covers the food that accompanies drinking sessions — dishes meant to be shared from the center of the table and eaten with your hands or a toothpick rather than as a full plated meal. Sisig, chicharon, and lumpia are all classic pulutan, valued as much for being salty, crunchy, and easy to keep eating as for any particular technique.
It's a social category more than a culinary one — almost any savory dish can become pulutan depending on the setting, but a few, like sizzling sisig, are so strongly associated with drinking sessions that they're rarely served any other way.
Where you'll taste it
Recipes on Pancit.com that call for pulutan.
Chicharon
Pork skin boiled, dried, and double-fried until puffed and crackling-crisp.
Lumpia Shanghai
Thin, crispy Filipino spring rolls filled with seasoned ground pork — a party-table staple.
Pork Sisig
Chopped pork, onion, and chili sizzled on a hot plate with calamansi and a raw egg on top.