Isla Grand Restaurant

The Bay Area’s Hottest New Clubstaurant Is Isla Grand in This East Bay Strip Mall | Eater SF

"A Bay Area Filipino restaurant known for dishes from the Pampangan region and across the archipelago has turned its Pleasant Hill flagship into a loud, celebratory, party-forward banquet space with live entertainment. On a busy Saturday night you’ll likely see cars circling the shared parking lot (some drivers resigning themselves to an overflow lot at an adjacent strip mall) while families and couples mingle outside waiting for a table; inside are two huge dining rooms — a typical dining area with tables for parties of four or more, and the action side with a bar, a stage, dizzyingly rotating rainbow club lights, a makeshift dance space and tables packed with parties of eight or more. Be smart or be prepared to wait: the host quoted a two-hour seating time to get into the club, err, main room at peak showtime, reservations are handled by phone, and reserved seating for groups over four or for the kamayan meal (also known as a boodle fight — a meal typically served over banana leaves and eaten by hand without utensils) often sells out depending on which entertainers (some who hail from the Philippines, others from the Bay Area) are onstage. The vibe is unabashedly a party — families, friend groups, birthdays and graduations fill the room while a live band covered hits including “Superstition” by Stevie Wonder and “Hotel California” by the Eagles, then a DJ spun ’90s and ’00s club hits like “Yeah,” by Usher and “Too Close,” by Next, moving people to dance at their tables and on the floor; volume can make ordering a challenge, though food arrives reliably, and TVs around the room show sports, cartoons (for kids) and a screen advertising the dishes with customer “Tasty-monials.” The massive, spiral-bound menu (almost on par with the Cheesecake Factory bible) emphasizes crowd-pleasers and regionals: sisig (a Pampangan specialty often arriving sizzling on a cast-iron platter), pork barbecue skewers, lumpia Shanghai, lechon, pancit, multiple styles of adobo, and less-common dishes such as Gotong Batangas (a soup with beef and offal) and Bicol Pinakbet (an assortment of vegetables such as calabasa squash and eggplant simmered in coconut milk), all served family-style with a pot of steaming white rice. The bar leans toward club drinks — printed menus list Jägerbombs, Singapore Slings, Long Islands and an AMF (the name sidestepping the Adios Motherfucker moniker) — plus wines, beers and 88-ounce beer towers delivered to tables. For those who enjoy a raucous “club-restaurant” atmosphere — drinking with your barkadas, pop hits playing in the background and large family-style plates — there is a certain charm here; for quieter diners it may be overwhelming, but for the crowd it “sounds, tastes, and feels like home.” Hours: 11 a.m.–9 p.m. Monday–Thursday; 11 a.m.–11:30 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m.–11:30 p.m. Saturday; 10 a.m.–9 p.m. Sunday." - Dianne de Guzman