Food Nostalgia

Add this to my list of favorite places...Filipino grocery stores (asian groceries in general). It's like being a kid again. Very nostalgic. My friend brought me to one near her house that just opened up. I was so excited to find a bakery there. They just took out a freshly baked pan of pandesal...it's equivalent to a dinner roll. I haven't had that since my last visit to the Philippines when I was 14 years old. Every morning in my dad's hometown someone would go to the bakery down the street and I would wake up to fresh baked pan de sal. It's the yummiest thing ever, especially dipped in coffee. :)

Pan de Leche w/ Ube - what's left of it. That little piece didn't last very long after I took this picture.

I went nuts in the store. I bought longanisa (Filipino sausage), pork tocino (cured sliced sweet pork normally eaten for breakfast with eggs and rice), haupia (sweet bean cake or equivalent to a chinese moon cake), puto (this is steamed rice cake people...not the derogatory spanish definition) and siopao (pronounced SHOE-POW...steamed buns filled with meat). But my most favorite purchase has to be the pan de leche filled ube. It's basically a sweeter version of pandesal filled with purple yam paste. I had never had this type of pan de leche before and I'm so glad I bought it. I didn't know what I was missing! I must miss filipino food a lot because I was in heaven. When I brought it home, Bubba, being the white boy that he is...did not know what anything was. He was game to try most of it. I think his favorite was the meat.

Longanisa - just look at it sitting in it's own greasy goodness. It's effing yummy with rice and hot sauce.



I just discovered a filipino bakery in the next town over (because they have a large filipino community compared to where I live) and I must go check it out soon. I hope they have the pan del leche ube, otherwise I will be near Daly City this weekend and I'll have to go before I head to the Halloween party on Saturday. Or maybe the better idea would be to stay overnight at Bubba's aunt's house and go Sunday morning. I'd feel like an idiot in my pirate costume walking around the filipino store.

Siopao - that little pink dot means it's pork filled...sometimes it's made with chicken too.

YUM!