Manila Fast Food Restaurant & Dessert

Manila Fastfood and Desserts
8979 Mira Mesa Blvd
San Diego, CA
92126
858-578-0968

I realized not too long ago that I haven't done a post on Manila Fast Food since showing the spread from Boyfriend's birthday last year.  Manila Fast Food is a regular spot for Boyfriend and I when we are craving Filipino food, though we haven't gone much recently.  The main reason being it closes early, like many of the turo turo fast food type Filipino places.  Usually we want something for dinner and we don't eat dinner that early.

Manila Fast Food offers a pretty large selection of popular Filipino dishes.  The prices are pretty reasonable.  A two item lunch combo is $5.99, and it's enough for both Boyfriend and I to share one.  For a dollar more, you can get pancit instead of rice. The store is family run, and it's usually a bunch of women working when we are there.  It used to be run by another family; I'm not sure when they changed owners but it's been a while.

Last time Kirk of mmm-yoso suggested that I try the goat.  Unfortunately, goat is only offered on Fridays and Saturdays.  On this particular night, I got the pork menudo (stew) and chicken adobo.  We got the food with pancit (rice noodle dish) instead of rice, though Boyfriend then ordered a small order of rice because he can't eat the pork stew without rice.

Finally, we got some lumpia.  I think since the place has changed owners, they are a bit heavy handed with the salt.  The lumpia are saltier than before, and I found the other food was slightly saltier as well.  Overall, I still enjoy coming here though.

The pork stew has a tomato based broth.  The stew is savory with a bit of sour.  The chicken adobo is also savory with a sour vinegar aftertaste.  Both of these dishes remind me of dishes my mom makes, which is why I think I like these dishes so much.

Soft Cut Out Sugar Cookies

Out of all the different dessert recipes I've tried out, Boyfriend's favorite is sugar cookies.  He likes all the sugar cookie recipes I've tried, but his favorite was the soft sugar cookies I made during Christmas.  Those sugar cookies didn't have a rolled dough that I could use to make cut-out shapes though. I wanted to make heart shaped soft sugar cookies for this weekend, so I searched for another recipe. 

I ended up finding a recipe on allrecipes.  The recipe was not a rolled recipe, but I read comments that it could be used to make cut-out cookies and that the dough doesn't even need refrigeration like most cut out recipes.

The fact that I didn't need to refrigerate the dough was a definite plus for me.  Sure enough the dough was solid enough for me to roll out and make cut outs.  The dough is definitely softer than most rolled dough, but it's still firm enough to roll out.

The cookies dough was easy to work with and the cookies came out tasty.  Boyfriend loved them.

Soft Sugar Cut Out Cookies (adapted from Laura Stearns at allrecipes)

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup shortening
• 2/3 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. 
   Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
   
2. 
   In a medium bowl, cream together the butter, shortening and sugar. Stir
   in the eggs and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking powder and salt,
   stir into the creamed mixture until dough comes together. Take large portion of dough and roll out on flat surface to about 1/4 inch thick and use cookie cutter to make cookie shapes.  Re-roll the dough scraps and repeat.
   
3. 
   Bake cookies 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven, until bottom is
   light brown. Remove from baking sheets to cool on wire racks.

From heart sugar cookies

Yakyudori Ramen and Yakitori

Yakyudori Ramen and Yakitori

4898 Convoy St, Suite 101
San Diego, CA 92111 

After getting the approval of both Kirk of mmm-yoso and Dennis of A Radiused Corner, I was excited to check out this new ramen joint, located right next to the drive-thru Starbucks on Convoy.

The place is pretty small, and the menu is limited to ramen right now as they wait for their liquor license.  There are 6 ramen options, as well as some appetizers.  With four of us dining, we were able to try out most of the ramen broths.

Baby Bro ordered the miso ramen.  I sampled all the ramens we ordered, and this one was my favorite.  The broth was different from any that I have ever tasted.  It doesn't taste like the miso soup paste I'm accustomed to. It was a pretty red, and it was more complex in flavors than the other broths, which allows you to continue to enjoy the broth and not tire of it. I can't really describe the flavors well, though the aftertaste was similar to korean soybean stew flavor.

I ordered the Shio Ramen.  The broth was very simple, but sometimes simple is best.  I enjoyed it, though I did feel it was bit too salty by the end of my meal.  I loved how the noodles weren't overcooked so that they retained the al dente texture.  The Chasu meat was soft and tender.

Boyfriend ordered the Chasu ramen.  At $9, I thought this was a bit too pricey.  It is the same as the Shoyu ramen, except that it has a couple extra pieces of pork.  This was my second favorite broth.  The broth had a strong Chasu flavor to it.

Little Brother ordered the Nagaya ramen. He was warned that it was spicy, but I was still surprised on how spicy it was.  It reminded me a lot of the ma-la spicy chinese soup broths.

Finally, we ordered the takoyaki.

Neither Boyfriend or I really liked the takoyaki that much.  The inside paste was not nearly as flavorful as the takoyaki we recently had in Little Tokyo.