Manila Fastfood- Filipino party food!

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

We celebrated the boyfriend’s birthday this weekend, with our yearly tradition: Filipino fast food and family.   In the past, the boyfriend’s family picked up some party tray items of food and brought it with them.  However, last year we were a bit disappointed with the pancit and the lumpia, and so this year we decided to save the boyfriend’s family the extra trip of picking up food on the drive over, and instead the boyfriend and I went to get the food at one of our favorite fast food Filipino places: Manila Fastfood and Dessert.  This shop is family run, friendly and is usually pretty busy.

They sell standard filipino fast food dishes at reasonable prices:

We usually get a two item combo, substituting pancit for rice and then get chicken adobo and one of the stews.  We’ve also tried the crispy pata.  I’ve found it to be a bit too dry.  Plus the boyfriend and I can never finish it, so we don’t usually get it anymore.

The boyfriend and I really love the pancit here.  Every place does it slightly different, but Manila Fastfood is my favorite variation.  Manila Fastfood’s version has lots of the thin rice noodles, and only a little bit of the thick egg noodles.  It also has a lot of cabbage and crunchy celery and meat. It’s not too oily and the dish is perfectly flavored with black pepper, salt, and I’m not sure what other sauces/spices. The boyfriend’s dad commented that this was really good pancit too, and he has a lot more experience with pancit than me, so it must be good here!

We ordered a full tray of the pancit.

We were a bit overwhelmed when we saw how much food it was.  I didn’t think we would ever be able to finish, but the pancit was so delicious that we barely had any leftovers.

Of course, we also had to have lumpia, the boyfriend’s favorite.  Sadly, the lumpia was disappointing this time.  Normally it’s quite yummy.  This time, it seemed like the person making the filling was too generous with the salt or perhaps had an accident with the salt lid.  The lumpia ended up being way too salty for me, even after dipping it in the sweet/sour sauce.  I only ate a few and had to stop.

We also got some chicken adobo.  I like the chicken adobo here.  The boyfriend doesn’t really care for it.  I haven’t tried many versions of chicken adobo as he has, so perhaps there are tastier ones out there, but I like the one at Manila Fast Food.  Chunks of chicken meat flavored with soy sauce and vinegar and I’m not sure what else.  Very similar to a chinese chicken dish my mom makes, except for the sour part.

For dessert, we got b
ilo bilo.  I love the color of this dessert and I love the tang yuan (glutinous rice flour balls) inside.  It’s super sweet though, so I can usually only eat a little. This version has yellow yams, ube balls, clear tapioca balls, tang yuan, and small tapioca.

I’m not a huge fan of the ube balls, though I love how they are purple.  Ube is not the same as taro, though people often think it is.  The ube balls have a bit of a scratchy texture from the root that I don’t really enjoy.  This soup/pudding base is very sweet.  Imagine drinking condensed milk straight.  That is about how sweet it is.  I don’t usually drink the soup.  I just pick out the stuff inside.