Filipino Eats at the Festival of Philippine Arts and Culture

 Every year, the Festival of Philippine Arts and Culture aka FPAC is put together by FilAm Arts, a non-profit organization. In fact, 2011 is FPAC's 20th Anniversary. For those of you unfamiliar with FilAm Arts, it's a multi-disciplinary community arts organization whose mission is to advance the understanding of the arts and diverse cultural heritage of Filipinos in the United States.

Every year, FPAC is a festival where Filipinos and non-Filipinos gather to experience Filipino culture through music, song, dance, other forms of art and expression and of course, through food.  Speaking of food, for those of you who have yet to try Filipino cuisine, FPAC would have been a great opportunity for you taste some of our food from different food vendors and all in one place. That doesn't happen very often, so it's something to think about for next year.

As a Filipina food blogger, Filipino food is definitely going to be the main topic of this post, so get ready to feel hungry.  It all started with a visit to Neri's Curbside Cravings Food Truck.
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Owner, Rhea Espino, gave us some delicious recommendations that started with her two Filipino-inspired gourmet burgers. First up was the Tocino Burger, which was a grilled sweetened pork patty, topped with cilantro, tomato and egg on a bed of a special mango-bell pepper slaw with a garlic aioli spread.

Following the Tocino Burger came the Tapa Burger, a grilled marinated beef patty that's topped with cilantro, tomato and egg and on a bed of a special mango-bell pepper slaw with garlic aioli spread.

Other dishes from Curbside Cravings were the Crispy Dinuguan, a blood stew with fried pork and the BBQ Chicken, which was grilled boneless chicken that had been marinated in a sweetened soy sauce.  Josh of the Food GPS blog was quite enamoured with the Crispy Dinguan, which you can read about by clicking here.

After Neri's Curbside Cravings, an order of Crispy Chicken Adobo which is chicken adobo grilled into crunchy flakes and served over rice with more tender chunks of chicken came from the Tapa Boy Food Truck.

Okoy may be an unfamiliar dish for those of you who are non-Filipinos, but I think it would be hard resisting taking a bite out of what is a fried shrimp and veggie fritter.  The one below came from Neri's Restaurant.

Filipino barbecue is generally on a stick and is either pork or chicken marinated in a soy-based sauce that also includes lemon-lime soda, brown sugar, garlic, lemons as well as other ingredients.  When grilled right, there is a lovely caramelization on the meat's surface just like the Pork Barbecue Stick I had from the Ramar Foods International booth.

When it was time to take care of one's sweet tooth, there was something for everyone.  For example, my grand-niece enjoyed a Grape Slush from Island Shaved Ice.

There was also a "Sweet Naman" booth that were manned by Filipino-owned dessert businesses. For example, you could get a scoop of goat milk ice cream from Delicieuse Artisanale French Ice Cream owned by Filipina, Patricia Sampson. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to try it out.  However, I made sure not to miss Tasty Clouds, owned by Nina Rodecker. After all, I wanted to make sure that I got a taste of their new cotton candy flavor that they decided to debut at FPAC, which was Philippine Mango. This flavor was so successful that Nina has added it to her Limited Edition Flavor List.

Also at the Sweet Naman booth was Creme Caramel, owned and operated by Kristine de la Cruz.  Like Tasty Clouds, Kristine introduced two new Creme Caramel flavors, Ube and Ube/Macapuno. I was all over that Ube/Macapuno and loved how I had to dig through the creamy flan to get to that sweet coconut. I'm crossing my fingers that those are two flavors that Kristine will carry on a more regular basis.

My final food of the day was a dish of Mais-Queso ice cream from Magnolia, a Filipino ice cream company.  Mais-Queso translates to corn and cheese and while that may seem like an odd pairing for ice cream, I love it.  It's just something you'll have to try for yourself. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture so that you could see how good it looked, but trust me. It was delicious.

On our way out, we also passed a table with these humongous Filipino vegetables. Take a look and you'll know what I mean.  In fact, one of them looks like a snake rearing its head.

Although most of the photos I took were geared towards the food, I did manage to capture a couple of stage shots, one of a band and the other which was a photo of Lea Salonga (wearing the black baseball hat) taking a photograph with the FilAm Arts Board of Directors.

All in all, it was a delicious way to spend a Saturday morning and hopefully, I'll bump into one or more of you at next year's Festival of Philippine Arts and Culture.

FilAm Arts
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"Take a Bite" Out of The LA County Fair

Sure, there's lots of rides, exhibits and shopping down at the LA County Fair, but in the end, it really is all about the food. A few days before the official opening of the Fair, I was invited to a Fair Food Media Mixer where I "literally" got a taste of what fair goers will be able to treat their palate to until October 2. For example, how about a plate of Chicken Sate, a Vegetarian Egg Roll and Noodles to start?

More ... For those of you with a big appetite, you can always sink your teeth into a giant grilled turkey leg or even two.

If you've never had Indian Fry Bread, then be sure to visit the Indian Fry Bread booth where they have both savory or sweet options to choose from. I went savory by sampling the Thai Chicken.

Of course, a fair isn't a fair without barbecue like the BBQ Pork and Tri Tip Sandwiches from Big Bubba's BBQ. We got the slider versions.

 

We also got to try Mini Burgers from Bubba's Burgers. Bubba sure gets around, doesn't he?

 

From burgers, we tried soft tacos with all the trimmings from the South of the Border food booth.

On hand will also be a few food trucks like Calbi where you can get your pork fix by ordering a Spicy Pork Taco.

The Piaggio food truck also made an appearnace and from there, Caprese Empanada and Chicken Empanada made their way into our tummies.

For sheer variety, you can't go wrong with Chicken Charlie's. Wouldn't you love a bite out of either their BBQ Ribs or Chicken Kebobs below and then finish the meal up with Deep Fried Kool-Aid for dessert.

If crepes are your thing, be sure to stop by the Crepes Bonaparte food truck and for something sweet, check out their Nutella Crepe.

 

For a different dessert option, stop by the Old Tyme Ice Cream Bars booth for both ice cream, but also Chocolate Dipped Cheesecake Rolled in Nuts.

 

So if you want to "Take a Bite" out of the LA Country Fair, be sure to get your tickets soon. The last day to visit is on October 2 and after that, you'll have to wait until next year.

LA County Fair
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Mother Moo Creamery Opens in Sierra Madre

I love ice cream. So for awhile now, I've been waiting with bated breath for Mother Moo Creamery to open in the city of Sierra Madre where I work. For weeks and days, every time I'd drive by, I'd be disappointed to see the front windows covered with butcher paper. Finally, last Friday, I heard a mention of Mother Moo opening this weekend and knew that Monday, I was finally going to get my ice cream buzz going.

Walking in, the ice cream shop itself is still quite sparse, but there was water for thirsty customers and a bowl of waffle cone samples to try. By the way, all the waffle cones are made in-house and there's even a chocolate waffle cone available.
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Also on the counter, there were jars of Mothercluck's Organic Strawberry Jam for sale. The jam is made using 100% organic strawberries freshly picked from McGrath Family Farms

For those of you who didn't know, Mothercluck and Mother Moo Creamery are both owned by Karen Klemens, who is an award-winning Master Food Preserver. Basically, that means that along with ice cream, you'll be able to purchase other Mothercluck jams, jellies and preserves. Karen will also be offering monthly food preservation courses from the ice cream shop.

Now, let's talk ice cream. What's great about Mother Moo Creamery is that it's going to feature organic milk and dairy products from Strauss Creamery. The emphasis will also be on using as much locally sourced ingredients as possible.  For me, that means that not only will I be getting ice cream that's "good" for me (at least in regards to the ice cream being made with quality ingredients), but it will probably taste unbelievable as well. I already got a great feeling when I took a look at the ice cream flavors that were available today.

I had a hard time choosing, but finally, I went for Farmer's Market Orange Ice Cream with Szechuan Peppers and the Cardmom Ice Cream. The orange ice cream actually had orange zest as well as crushed Szechuan Peppers. That ice cream tasted really fresh and I liked how the citrus flavors paired with the little bit of heat that came from the peppers. As for the cardamom ice cream, all I could taste was the cardamom and that's as it should be. What I also liked was that neither ice cream was too sweet and the rich, creamy texture of the ice cream itself was amazing.

As I was leaving with my two scoops of ice cream, Karen mentioned making cucumber sorbet and that stopped me in my tracks. When asked when it would be ready, she said later on in the day and you do know what happened, right? I stopped by after work to pick up the Cucumber Sorbet to take home. I even managed to wait a couple of hours after dinner to have some.All I have to say is Wow.

Karen had mentioned that she had picked up the cucumbers from a farmer's market and it was obvious.You could really smell the fragrance of cucumbers from the ice cream and when I took a bite, it was like eating a fresh, juicy cucumber, but in sorbet form. It was just so refreshing and again, not too sweet.

All I have to say that given that I'm just down the street from Mother Moo Creamery, there's definitely going to be a lot of ice cream eating coming my way. If you're an ice cream lover too,, Mother Moo Creamery should without a doubt make it on your to-go list and I know that you won't be disappointed.

Mother Moo Creamery
17 Kersting Court
Sierra Madre, CA
626-355-9650
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