Little Bro’s girlfriend (not to be confused with Baby’s Bro’s girlfriend who has been providing the Taiwan post pics.) recently had a birthday. After doing the usual celebrations that college students do, we decided to have a quiet family dinner with her as well.
She is Filipino so she was craving some Filipino food. Little Bro decided to go to Manila Fast Food to pick up some food for the dinner. I took a few quick pics before everything was devoured. Sorry about the poor quality of the pictures.
Pancit, a stir fried vermicelli dish, is very very popular with my family. My sister goes nuts for it. I’m not sure what makes it so addicting, but it is. So we ordered half a tray of pancit ($30). It was scary how fast this disappeared. The tray was big and full and we only had about a serving bowl left of leftovers by the end of the night.
Lumpia, which are filipino egg rolls, are also a popular favorite in my house. We ordered 100 of them ($35).
In addition, we ordered a few individual sized items of different dishes. I should have waited to take pictures when we poured them into bowls, but I was too lazy to take any more pictures by that point.
We had some chicken adobo.
Goat stew
Sinigang na bangus – fish in tamarind soup
Bilo bilo- a sweet dessert with sticky rice balls, ube balls and large tapioca.
kare-kare- a stew with a peanut butter based sauce
Everything tasted pretty good. I was a little relieved because on our last few visits to Manila, the food had been very salty.
Manila Fastfood and Desserts
8979 Mira Mesa Blvd
San Diego, CA 92126
858-578-0968
Doesn’t the pancit remind you of ‘mee-fun’?
How were the lumpia? I’m trying to find a place to order food for my nephew’s bday coming up. Did the lumpia stay pretty fresh and crispy? And the filling?
I’m really new to Filipino food so it’s been fun trying stuff out (I know it sounds lame but the Filipino fast food place in the UTC mall is my most recent visit). But I’m in love w/ anything Sinigang – really really love that soup!
Yes, I always think the pancit is like mee-fun, but I like pancit so much more! I think it’s the seasoning. The lumpia got cold and weren’t crunchy after a few hours. They can be reheated in a toaster oven. I’m not sure I know of any places where the lumpia doesn’t lose its crispy texture after it gets cold though. I like the filling of the lumpia here though twice we came and it was really salty…So I would say that it can be inconsistent. The only other place I’ve really enjoyed for lumpia is Fredcel Lumpia and Catering. You might want to check them out. I really liked the lumpia there and apparently a lot of people go there to get lumpia for parties. I blogged about it here https://kirbiecravings.com/2009/07/fredcel-lumpias-catering.html
I was considering going there, but they don’t offer as much of the other stuff we want, and I didn’t want to make two trips for different foods.
wow, you had goat? you’re brave! 🙂
looks like you had all the party staples (pancit, lumpia and adobo)! yum!
the fish is actually called ‘bangus’; in english it is called ‘milkfish’. there are a lot of tiny little bones in bangus which usually deters me. it’s one of my parents’ fave foods.
The goat was really gamey, but I still liked it. Thanks for the correction on bangus. I knew I would spell something wrong!