Then one day, I got a tweet from @joanneisafoodie asking me if I was free for Sunday brunch. Joanne is a Filipino Food Blogger from the Bay Area. Along with building connections with other Socal Filipino Food Bloggers, I've tried to do the same with just Filipino Food Bloggers in general. Lo and behold, a contingent of Norcal Filipino Food Bloggers decided to a "Bay2LA" road trip down south as a way to not only enjoy Southern California's great eats, but as a bonus, to meet up with their Southern California counterparts, namely us. I later met with Joanne and the rest of the crew for brunch at Fraiche, but first, we feasted on The Park's Finest BBQ.
One of the foodie experiences they definitely wanted to try was the food from The The Park's Finest BBQ, a catering company whose specialty is Filipino-inspired BBQ. You can click here to read about my first experience with The Park's Finest BBQ and why I've been a fan ever since. Once the location was set, I was able to make arrangements with Park's for them to bring all their meat goodness to us for a picnic at the park. After waiting with much anticipation, Park's arrived and the first thing they did was to start slicing some of the meats.
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First to be sliced was the Ribeye Roast and of course, we all had to take pictures first of that gorgeous hunk of meat.
Even while the Ribeye Roast was being sliced, pictures were still being taken. It was so hard to keep your eyes off the Ribeye as juicy slices were hitting the cutting board.
From the Ribeye Roast, it was time for the Compostela Pork Tender Loin to be cut into. The crusting on that pork looked amazing. Park's apparently has a special spice rub that they use.
The Mt. Mayon Hot Links were the last to be sliced. One thing I didn't know before is that Park's doesn't make their own sausages; however, they do have plans to start making their own longanisa, a Filipino-style sausage, in the near future.
Other bbq offerings included their Mt. Malindang Pork Rack of Ribs, Taal Manok (Chicken) and Pork Riblets.
Parks' definitely knows their meats, but they also do awesome veggie sides that include mushrooms, asparagus and their Ligaya Veggie Medley.
For dessert, we also ordered their Ann’s Cornbread Bibingka. I'm not sure who Ann is, but she's a genius. I love how the cornbread has corn kernels cooked in it and the sprinkling of sugar on the surface gives it the Filipino twist.
Here are some pictures of our feast below.
One of the things I absolutely loved and raved to others when I first had Park's was their really addictive bbq sauce, which has coconut as one of their ingredients. It just had a smoky, sweet flavor to it that just did it for me. Well, they have finally bottled it and you can purchase it at Figueroa Produce. Of course, they're hoping to expand, but for now, drop by Figueroa Product to pick up your bottle.
You'd think that we've already been blessed by delicious food, but @carolineadobo of When Adobo Met Feijoada brought in a killer Leche Plan (Filipino version of Flan) and a cake version of Halo Halo. Halo Halo, by the way, is a Filipino shaved ice dessert that includes different kinds of beans, jellies and fruits topped with shaved ice and milk or condensed milk, that you usually mix with your spoon. Sometimes it comes topped with a scoop of ube (purple yam) or mango ice cream. The cake was tasty on its own, but when eaten with the leche plan, it was even better.
Overall, it was a wonderfully delicious picnic. It was made even more special because I was able to both re-connect with my Socal Filipino Foodie Friends and also meet our new friends from up North as well. To think, it all started with Twitter. :)
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| Thanks @mrfredbriones for the awesome group photo |
Read about the Bay 2 LA Adventures at the links below:
@mrfredbriones - #Bay2LA Foodie Road Trip 2011@joanneisafoodie - #Bay2LA When Nor Cal Met So Cal
To all my fellow tweaters, here's to breaking bread again in the near future!
Albert - @filipeanut
Arnold - @inuyaki
Caroline - @carolineadobo
Emilie - @nuts4pilinuts
Fred - @mrfredbriones
Joanne - @joanneisafoodie
Keaton - @phatpanda650
Malou - @malou_nievera
Reese - @nerissas
Remil - @LIMER35
Steve - @asianclarkkent
Tina - @CeeEsBee
^
5 comments:
Oh my, I'm so envious of your Filipino tweetup and feast! Looks like you had a blast! The dishes are drool-worthy, too.
WOW... great that you guys can catch up and have a feast. Food looks delcious
Joy/Cherrie Pie: We're definitely lucky that we found each other. :) It's making for some delicious adventures together.
nice to see you guys get together. I hope we can do that too here in Australia. we sort of planned a meet up last decemeber but everyone seemed to be busy. but I hope we do, so it's our turn to let you guys see our Filipino-Aussie food.
Yumyumyumyum!
Ziggy: It took awhile for us to get together, too. Once we did, now we've been doing it monthly. In fact, I even created a FB Group so that we can all keep in touch. Maybe, you should do the same. :)
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