#LA2BAY: Sweet (Desserts at Patio Filipino) Followed by Savory (Lechon from Taste Buds)

This post is part of my ongoing series about my #LA2BAY trip to San Francisco and continues my eating adventure after doing a Ferry Food Building Crawl.

You'd think that after doing a Ferry Building Food Crawl, even a group of dedicated food lovers may have hit their limit, but three of us still wanted something sweet and somehow, nothing at the Ferry Building was appealing to our sweet tooth.  So after conferring, we decided to take a short drive to Patio Filipino in San Bruno to get some Filipino desserts.  This was actually going to be my second visit there since I had dinner there just a few weeks before. When we arrived, we started off with a round of drinks that included buko juice and calamansi juice.

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As for dessert, we ordered 3 different kinds.  The first to arrive was the Buko Con Seta which had jello made from fresh coconut juice with sweet beans and topped with ube ice cream.   It all arrived nicely packaged in a coconut shell.  I had this before and even the second time around, it was just as refreshing.

Next was the Turon with Ice Cream.  Turon is a fried banana lumpia (aka egg roll). Sometimes, turon is also a combination of banana and jackfruit.  What's different about the lumpia wrapper for the turon is that sugar is usually sprinkled inside the wrapper.  When it's fried, the turon has a lovely caramelization to it and that's what was good about the turon at Patio Filipino plus it arrived warm and crispy to our table.

Last was the Crema Pastelera which is a Flan Served with whatever berries are in season. While we were there, it was all about the strawberries. There wasn't anything unique about this flan, but it had a nice custardy texture, it wasn't too sweet and it tasted good. What more do you need?

By this time, we were stuffed to the gills and we honestly weren't going to eat anything else.  But then, while stopping to get bottled water, we ended up right next door to Tastebuds.

Tastebuds is a Filipino restaurant that specializes in lechon (whole roasted pig) and from Tuesday through Sunday, they serve a different style of Lechon  We were actually planning on eating there while we were visiting San Francisco, but couldn't seem to fit it in our schedule and yet, there it was.  So we went inside just to take a look and were greeted with a very porkalicious sight!

The plan was just to order some lechon to go.  Our intentions were good.  They cut some pork, including skin, from that roast pig, put everything into a to go container for us to go back to the hotel with.   However, it was looking and smelling so good, we broke down and actually ended up sitting down and eating that crispy skin and moist succulent pork goodness straight from the plastic container.

Wow, that was some of the best lechon I've had in a really long time and unfortunately, there isn't a Filipino restaurant in Los Angeles that does what Tastebuds does.  So if you're reading this and you own a Filipino Restaurant in LA, please follow Tastebuds' lead and I bet you'll get a lot of happy pork lovers coming your way.

This was definitely a full day and after all this eating, it was time to rest up because in just a few hours, we were going to be enjoying a delicious dinner at Attic, so stay tuned.

Patio Filipino
1770 El Camino Real
San Bruno, CA 94066
(650) 872-9888


Tastebuds
582 San Bruno Ave W
San Bruno, CA 94066
(650) 583-0899
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