Mais con Hielo, Halo-Halo, Tito Rad's

I love when corn is used in dessert. I've been dying to try mais con hielo (a Filipino drink/dessert which is exactly what it sounds like: corn with ice) for a while, but when I went to Ihawan and Krystal's a few months ago to search for it for my Corn Around the World post, it wasn't available. I knew that Tito Rad's in Woodside had it, but I haven't been for a while. Until yesterday. After a huge meal at Pio Pio Riko in Sunnyside with Shannon yesterday afternoon, we still wanted a little something sweet. She really wanted an icy Asian drink and I thought we were in the wrong neighborhood until I realized - Tito Rad's! Just a few blocks away, she could get halo-halo and I could finally try...mais con hielo.

Tito Rad's version tastes just like creamed corn. I think it is creamed corn. With ice, evaporated milk, a little sugar, and some whipped cream. The corn was warm, the ice was cold, it was more salty than sweet, and there was a little bit of crunch from the flaky garnish. It was interesting, and I expected it to be sweeter, but I liked it. $3.75.

Nothing not to like about halo-halo. I was more focused on the corn, but I did enjoy all of the delicious bits of jackfruit, red and white beans, young coconut and palm fruit, mixed in with every bite, of ice, milk, and ice cream - the scoop of bright purple ube ice cream that was beneath the surface was my favorite part. Really tasted like sweet, starchy yams. $5.50.

It's always nice when a wish is fulfilled. I dreamed of eating iced sweet corn. I can check that off my list now.

Krystal's Lunch...Buffet

If I knew how to do a slide show I would, because Krystal's buffet is the kind of place that deserves a slide show. Upon entering Krystal's, it is necessary to walk back, past the counter, past the baked goods, past the tables, to the back stairway. Walk up the dark wooden stairs and you will find a large room, where there will be people, enjoying their lunch, watching some Filipino tv, and going up for seconds at the buffet. This is exactly what you should be doing too. I can't think of a better way to spend a lazy weekday afternoon. I went with Stella, who believes Krystal's to be a better lunch than Fiesta Grill. Or should I say "a better bang for your buck" so as not to misquote. I have to agree that unlimited soda, food, and cake, all for $8.00, is pretty hard to beat. Here are some highlights of the meal.
This is a terrible picture, taken to show you the size of the buffet table. There are around ten options. I didn't want to bother fellow buffet goers, so the man is blocking most of it. Sorry.
This is my first plate. Above the white rice are some lumpiang shanghai (spring rolls) and some crispy pork belly. To the right of the rice: some chicken stewed in coconut milk, adobo pork, and a beef stew with potatoes, peppers and olives. The lumpiang were good, I'm not sure I've ever had a bad spring roll. The crispy pork varied. I had a few nice crispy fatty pieces, some chicharron-y pieces, and some were too dry. I liked the chicken, it was falling off the bone tender, with a mild coconut sweetness. The adobo was my favorite. The pork was so soft, and the soy-garlic flavor really permeates the meat but doesn't overpower. The beef stew was very Spanish-tasting, hearty, beefy, and I love anything stewed with olives. Something I would want on a cold or rainy day. The rice was rice.
These vegetables were good. Still crunchy, barely steamed, and just seasoned carrots, cabbage, another vegetable that reminded me of chayote, (maybe because it was?) and the best part: quail eggs.
Soup! Chicken soup! Large chicken pieces and rice noodles.

The second time up to the buffet I got some pancit that wasn't out before, and a little more adobo. I couldn't resist.

Cake Buffet. Does it really matter if it's good? I got a piece of the ube cake.
I just love the color. I mostly just ate the filling. It mostly just tasted sweet. I was too full to try anything else, but I just liked knowing that it was there. I just like knowing that Krystal's is there, feeding all of these people every day, while I've just been walking past, oblivious all of these years. I feel better about the world knowing that the upstairs buffet exists.

Krystal's Cafe & Pastry Shop
69-02 Roosevelt Ave
Woodside

Red Ribbon Again.

I have lots to say about Red Ribbon and their cakes, which you can read about here on Serious Eats. I am not going to get into the cakes, their flavors, or my favorite brazo de mercedes, because today I am going to talk about empanadas. I had already discovered, early on in the project, that Filipino empanadas are somewhat different from their Latin American counterparts in that there is a sweet element to these savory patties. I ordered one (if you buy five you get the sixth free, and I can't say I wasn't tempted) and an ube-tapioca drink, and went on my merry way. My ube (purple yam) was sweet and a little starchy, icy cold with chewy tapioca here and there. And a beautiful color. Drinking my ube shake on the walk home.
Red Ribbon's empanadas, while they have a somewhat mass-produced sort of look to them, are quite good. A sweet-salty, flaky crust encases a chunky chicken filling with a few plump black raisins here and there for added sweetness. But it made me realize that I need to try more empanadas from more Filipino places. So far I've only had Fritzie's and RR. I need to eat more empanadas to compare and contrast. Purely in the name of research, of course. Not because I like them or anything.

Dear Fiesta Grill

Dear Fiesta Grill and your lunch special - I can not find the words to express how I feel about you. So many options, so much food that's new to me, I would go back every day if I could to conquer your menu. I like you lots.

Fiesta Grill has a steam table filled with all sorts of unmarked stews, meats, veggies. Lunch time was too busy to ask the counter guys for much explanation, so for this, my first visit, I stood at the end of the line, watched what other people were ordering, and copied them. The $3.95 lunch special is rice or pancit with one side. The $5.95 special is rice or pancit with two sides. I ended up, after some confusion, with a lunch special of pancit, pork adobo and kare kare.
This is the pancit. Pancit are noodles, and these are tasty. The rice noodles were mixed with snow peas, carrot sticks, bits of roasted pork, not too greasy, not too salty, they soak up the flavors of everything else on the plate.
Adobo pork. Really good. Chunks of soft pork, meaty and fatty pieces, with a great soy flavor. I like adobo. There were a few pieces of raw onion mixed in, adding crunch and bite to the dish.
Kare Kare. When I pointed to this stew and asked what it was, the countermen laughed. "It's beef in peanut sauce" they said, "do you still want it?" Um, yes, please. What's so funny about beef in peanut sauce? Oxtails, to be exact, braised and tender, along with some unidentifiable gelatinous pieces, soft green beans, greens, and bok choy, all cooked in a peanut sauce. It was good. But this is where I become word-less. One of the reasons that I began this adventure was to explore; to experience unique preparations and combinations of ingredients that I have not yet eaten. To go places that I would not necessarily have gone before. It's a great feeling, but I can't quite explain it. All I can say is thank you, Fiesta Grill. I shared my first kare kare experience with you. And it was not laughable. I am very serious about my love of food.

Fiesta Grill
69-12 Roosevelt Ave
Woodside

Chickenjoy!!!

Jollibee is my absolute new favorite place. If Jollibee were a person, and not an imaginary Filipino cartoon bee, I know that we would be best friends. So fun. Why is fast food from other countries so much better than ours? David and I waited on the long, slow line, glad for the extra time to decide what to order. Fried chicken with fries, mashed potatoes, or corn (fries, of course). Or do we get our fried chicken with spaghetti and hot dogs or palabok (it was a tough decision but in the end spaghetti won). Jollibee spaghetti- the spaghettiest! It definitely was spaghetti. On a side note, I am fascinated by different countries' takes on spaghetti. Mexican Spaghetti is a one of my favorite dinners, not something you'd find at a restaurant (and not a light dinner, as it's topped with lots of sour cream and cheese), but maybe I'll make it and take pictures one day soon, just for fun. Anyway, back to Chickenjoy!, Jollibee's fried chicken. We wanted to try more of the menu, no hamburgers this time, but we also ordered the Shanghai rolls, an ube (purple yam) shake with tapioca, and then I went back for the mango-peach pie.

A not good phone picture of the Shanghai rolls. I went without camera, sadly. They tasted exactly like McDonald's chicken nuggets. And by that I mean everything good about McDonald's chicken nuggets. Crunchy, greasy, with a hint of chicken flavor. Maybe from frying them in the chicken-y oil? Maybe that's what they're supposed to taste like? I don't know, I don't care, they were terribly good.
Yum, icy ube! The tapioca was unnecessary and completely pushed me over the fullness edge, but it was tasty.

Terrible picture of spaghetti and chicken. It looks pretty plastic-like. The sauce was sweet, the meat was chewy, I enjoyed every bite of it.
A slightly better picture.

Crispylicious! Juicylicious! Jollibee loves inventing words and using exclamation points! It was crispy. It was juicy. It was great.
Also the spicy version (no good picture, sorry) came with a little red flag stabbed into the chicken that said "spicy". The top of the crispy juicy chicken was sprinkled with a spice powder that really is hot. Really, really good. So crispy!

Mango peach pie. Fried pie. Hot, fruity, filling. Everyone had them on their tables. I wanted one. I went back to get one a few days later, since the line was too long to get back on the first time. I carried it with me on my 20 minute walk home, and it was still hot when I finally ate it. I can only imagine the tongue burning pleasures of a freshly fried pie. The crust was crisp and bubbly. The filling was very sweet, more peachy than mango, but with a floral aftertaste.

What more can I say about Jollibee? I want to have a large family just so that I can take home big red buckets of fried chicken, and upgrade it with rice and pies. My only fear would be that my chickenjoy would be lessened were I to take it to go, for to lose any of that crispiliciousness would be a crime.

Jollibee
62-29 Roosevelt Ave.
Woodside