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The best places in Philly to find Filipino desserts, according to ‘Mayumu’ author Abi Balingit

The best places in Philly to find Filipino desserts, according to ‘Mayumu’ author Abi Balingit

For Abi Balingit, the bite most emblematic of Filipino cuisine is halo-halo, the shaved ice soaked in evaporated milk and sweet toppings. The dessert, which is Tagalog for “mix-mix,” offers a variety of textures with a good balance of flavor.

“[Filipino sweets] are a play on texture but also flavor profile,” said the New York-based baker, whose experiences with the desserts of her heritage culminated in a dessert cookbook, Mayumu: Filipino American Desserts Remixed.

A few components bring out these characteristics, including kakanin, or rice and coconut delicacies, ube and pandan, which are used among the 75 recipes in Balingit’s book.

Philly is bursting with Pinoy flavors, from the pop-up Tabachoy, now open as a brick-and-mortar restaurant, and national chains like Red Ribbon BakeShop and Jollibee. More projects are on the horizon, including Baby’s, a cafe from the team behind supper club Tita Emmie’s, slated to open in Brewerytown this summer. Inspired by the treats and flavors Balingit highlights in her new book, we’ve tracked down some of Philly’s best spots for Filipino desserts.

For Chance Anies, Filipino cuisine is all about bold savory or sweet dishes often associated with personal experiences and flavor memories.

“My personal favorite dessert is bibingka,” said Anies, owner of Tabachoy. “Traditionally, bibingka is a rice or cassava flour cake. But the way that I grew up with it in my Filipino family’s household was very much like a coconut sheet cake, very dense with oil.”

While he doesn’t offer the dessert on the menu, Anies has a pandan cheesecake at his Bella Vista restaurant. It’s a Basque-style cheesecake wrapped in a banana leaf, with a texture profile akin to bibingka. “Although it is not the same, a lot of Filipinos will eat it and ask me, ‘Is this bibingka?’”

There’s also an ube sundae, which contrasts hot and cold temps. A swirl of ube soft serve is topped with coconut caramel and puffed rice, served in a tin cup, and accompanied by a crunchy turon, a banana spring roll.

“Let’s take these things that are traditionally Filipino in flavor — they don’t necessarily have to be served in the exact same way — and cross over into Western technique,” said Anies.

📍 932 S. 10th St., 🌐 tabachoyphilly.com

This national bakery in Northeast Philly is one of Balingit’s childhood favorites.

“[Red Ribbon] was kind of my first experience with Filipino desserts, along with my family making it home,” she said. “It’s a good place to start.”

Find mamon sponge cakes bursting with mocha and butter flavors, soft bread rolls known as pandesal, Filipino chiffon cake called taisan loaf, and Ube Overload Cake with layers of Philippine ube halaya.

📍 2201 Cottman Ave., Suite 113, 📞 215-449-8389, 🌐 redribbonbakeshop.com

Chef Raquel Villanueva Dang of Tita Emmie’s says her favorite dessert is taho, a cup of silken tofu layered with brown sugar syrup and tapioca pearls that’s typically served at breakfast. She says each bite brings the nostalgia of mornings in the Philippines where “the guy yells out, ‘taho!’”

You might find taho for brunch at Baby’s this summer — Dang is still working on the menu for the forthcoming Brewerytown cafe. But you can expect a rotating selection of Filipino pastries like pandesal, sticky rice, cheesecakes, and other desserts.

🌐 instagram.com/babysphl

Kathy Mirano is the queen of Filipino food at Reading Terminal Market. The lunch counter in Center City’s prime dining destination highlights the dishes of Mirano’s childhood. There’s a menu dedicated to desserts, including layered halo-halo, creamy ube jam, half and whole cake rolls with ube, matcha and mango creams, and sweet crispy turon. Macarons stuffed with ube, matcha, banana, pineapple, coconut, and mango are also available.

📍 51 N. 12th St., 📞 215-800-8844, 🌐 tambayanphilly.com

Explore this Northeast Filipino grocery and food store. There are boxes of assorted polvoron (shortbread cookie) with flavors like pandan, ube and toasty pinipig, coconut, and pineapple. Also find the pandan-filled moon cake-like pastry called hopia and macapuno ensaymada, a soft, sweet bread covered with butter, sugar and topped with grated cheese. It delivers a perfect blend of salty and sweet.

📍 7925 Bustleton Ave., 🌐 pinoy-groseri.com

What if bibingka was made with corn masa typically used in tamales and tortillas? Roxxanne Delle Site-Jeronimo created a version of her favorite childhood dessert with ingredients of her husband Alfredo’s Mexican heritage. The couple combines their cultural backgrounds to offer Filipino-Mexican delights on their Instagram pop-up shop.

Delle Site-Jeronimo remixes tres leches with Pinoy ingredients like sampaguita (jasmine flower), ube, pandan and Milo hot chocolate mix. Her ensaymada-concha hybrid is filled with ube and macapuno (jellylike coconut), and doughnuts come with a calamansi-poppyseed glaze and a caramelized plantain cream filling.

To order the treats, keep an eye out on Instagram — the couple offers items monthly.

🌐 instagram.com/mexipinophilly

In Mount Laurel, find turon with ube ice cream, halo-halo and more on the made-to-order menu at Manila Cafe. Plus, cassava cake, banana fritters, sapin-sapin, and other types of rice and coconut cakes are served on certain days.

You’ll find sapin-sapin, cassava cake, and sweet fried saba bananas at the Somerdale location.

📍 200 Larchmont Blvd., Mount Laurel, 📞 856-222-0604, 🌐 manilacafenj.net;📍 20 S White Horse Pike, Somerdale, 📞 856-435-4999, 🌐 manilacafe2nj.net

Over in East Passyunk, chef Lou Boquila is a master at kamayan family-style feasts. At Perla, a chocolate coconut budino concludes the impressive meal.

📍 1535 S. 11th St., 📞 267-273-0008, 🌐 perlaphilly.com

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Award-winning chef, author encourages exploration of roots in lecture at Kennesaw State

Award-winning chef, author encourages exploration of roots in lecture at Kennesaw State


KENNESAW, Ga. |
Jan 27, 2023

Award-winning chef, author encourages exploration of roots in lecture at Kennesaw State
Michael Twitty

For renowned chef, culinary historian and writer Michael Twitty, living at the intersection
of multiple identities provides an opportunity to educate – and his medium is food.

The James Beard Award-winning author and longtime Hebrew educator spoke Thursday on living as a queer, African American Jew during the 10-year anniversary of Kennesaw State University’s inaugural Paul and Beverly Radow Lecture Series on Jewish Life. His message to each person in the crowd at KSU’s Stillwell Theatre was to live fully in their identity and to learn about their cross-sections of lineage and culture.

“I belong to all different kinds of peoples and intersections, and that’s not weird because everybody in this audience does. Nobody is free from intersectionality,” Twitty said. “Someone has to talk about the ideas behind the import of food, and not just the food itself. The food is a vehicle to understanding each other.”

Twitty noted how heavily influenced food of the American South is by its history of
slavery, and how family recipes or food preferences can often be traced back to a
combination of ethnic roots. He also stressed the importance of not putting people
into boxes, no matter their race, gender, religion, culture or combination thereof.
That, he said, is how the history of communities with unique cultures are lost.

Norman Radow and Michael Twitty
Norman Radow and Michael Twitty

“If you have a story, and you think it’s a niche story, record it – document it. Don’t let people say years from now, ‘They didn’t exist,’” he said. “Tell these stories. Make sure the world understands. Talk about what it means to have a Nigerian daddy and a momma from Georgia, because that’s complicated.”

Norman Radow – historian, longtime KSU benefactor and namesake of the Radow College of Humanities and Social Sciences – praised Twitty’s lecture as representative of many different perspectives of the American experience.

“Michael is such a unique individual, and I think he did a great job of entertaining and making his lecture so personal,” Radow said. 

Radow College Dean Katie Kaukinen agreed, noting Twitty’s ability to use food as a metaphor and medium for cross-cultural understanding and appreciation. She noted his example of the variety of ingredients that may appear in a potato salad depending on a family’s cultural and ethnic background and how different that same dish may turn out if prepared by a diverse group.

“I think the takeaway is we’re not one or the other. People can’t be put into boxes in terms of who they are as human beings,” Kaukinen said. “Michael reminds us that we have to own all those spaces to which we belong, but we also have to be forceful in asking others to respect those spaces.”

Kaukinen also credited Twitty with broadening the understanding of what historians
and those in the humanities do. Though two people might be neighbors in Georgia, she
said, studying the food they eat could tell vastly different stories about those individuals.

Photo

“I think the way he articulated that was profound,” she said.

Twitty is the first African American to win the James Beard Award for best writing and Book of the Year in 2018 for “The Cooking Gene: A Journey through African American Culinary History of the Old South.” “The Cooking Gene” was released in 2017 and traced his ancestry through food from Africa to America and from slavery to freedom. His follow-up book, “KosherSoul: The Faith and Food Journey of an African American Jew,” was published in 2022 and was named the national Jewish Book of the Year by the Jewish Book Council.

Twitty’s media appearances include Netflix’s “High on the Hog,” “Bizarre Foods America,” with Andrew Zimmern, “Many Rivers to Cross,” with Henry Louis Gates, and “Taste the Nation,” with Padma Lakshmi from “Top Chef.” He also teaches a course entitled, “Tracing Your Roots through Food,” which can be found on MasterClass, YouTube, ClassCentral and other sites.

– By Thomas Hartwell
Photos by Darnell Wilburn

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A leader in innovative teaching and learning, Kennesaw State University offers undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degrees to its more than 43,000 students. Kennesaw State is a member of the University System of Georgia with 11 academic colleges. The university’s vibrant campus culture, diverse population, strong global ties and entrepreneurial spirit draw students from throughout the country and the world. Kennesaw State is a Carnegie-designated doctoral research institution (R2), placing it among an elite group of only 7 percent of U.S. colleges and universities with an R1 or R2 status. For more information, visit kennesaw.edu.