Mabuhay Festival

This past weekend we attended this event at Kimball Park in National City...

Of course, I was interested in the food...

We went quite early to help set up one of the booths. This was around 9:30 in the morning. Many of the booths were "business" oriented (insurance, travel, vacation homes, Mile of Cars, social service agencies, burial plans/wtf, etc) mainly because the organizer had ties to the business communit. There really weren't any t-shirt vendors which I was also looking for.

We were curious because a former President of the Philippines would be here...

That would be former President Fidel Ramos. It's not very often that you see a Philippine president in San Diego.

Apparently he was here to promote a documentary...

PASACAT, San Diego's oldest Philippine dance company promoted the Philippine culture through music, dance, and displays of beautiful costumes from the major regions.

The green and blue outfits are Muslim, while the lavender costume in the front (kimona/butterfly sleeve blouse with matching skirt) garnered the most attention. In fact, people thought it was for sale, but it actually belonged to the executive director of PASACAT. She bought it nine years ago from a Filipino designer Alonso "Boy" Guinoo (pronounced, "Gee-noh-oh"), also known as "Mindanao's Fashion Czar", who also designs costumes for the Bayanihan Dance Company. It was beautiful and unique because of the floral appliques and the hand painted gold details.

She told us she hardly ever wears it because it's really heavy and hot.

Now on to the food. I was happy to see local ice cream maker, Niederfrank's.

We would come back later for ice cream...

Of course, there had to be snacks and lemonade:

And hey, what was this?

We would also visit the Mexican food booth shortly.

Below, Hawaiian shave ice. If you can't tell, it was overcast that morning, aka "June Gloom" but it still didn't stop folks from getting ice cream and shave ice.

These guys are always at the festival. TC really likes their fresh coconut juice that's served in a coconut.

This was the ONLY Filipino food there. There was a longass line later when I came back.

They hadn't put in their ice yet so the cantelope juice wasn't quite ready. This is such a refreshing drink and only $1.50!

The Arroz Caldo (rice porridge) was a popular item. I like that the larger size is labeled as "B" (B for big?). The Banana Q is banana on a skewer. "Tokwa" is fried tofu (which I don't like), and "buko" is young coconut. "Gulaman" is gelatin, which is usually cubed in a sweet drink.

Many folks think of lumpia and pancit as the "typical" Filipino food. The truth is, it's really a "festival" or party food. It's not something that we, or I, eat everyday, mainly because it's a pain in the @$$ to make.

These Mexican snacks were also popular. The Festival not only attracted Filipinos, but folks of other ethnicities such as Mexican, African American, Caucasian, and Pacific Islander. It was really nice to see a mix of folks out there that day. I saw an older Latino gentleman walking around with his grandkids and he was wearing a Barong Tagalog! Very cool!

Back to the Mexican food. This caterer, Roberto's (not affiliated with the taco shops) is based in Chula Vista. He and his family were there that day grilling three types of meats (chicken, pork adobada, and carne asada) for tacos or mulitas.

They were genuinely nice people and happy to chat with us about the food and their business.

Bert also bought a glass of ice cold Horchata,

while I watched Mr. Zambrano (the owner) grill meat in the back...

Another family member was grilling up the corn tortillas and onions...

The booth nearby was selling roasted ears of corn ("elote"). These were the condiments for the corn.

The horchata which was flavored with cinnamon...

Bert and I shared a trio of tacos (one of each meat)...

We also ordered two mulitas (pork and beef).

Ah, there they are. For some reason, I thought the mulitas would "stick" together closed.  This was a bit difficult to eat because they weren't "sealed" and fell apart.  Unless I held this the wrong way? I think these didn't have enough cheese! In any case, these were delicious!

They put double tortillas for each taco. If we had a bigger plate, we could have divided the fillings but didn't think of that until afterwards. My favorite was the adobada. Bert liked the carne asada.

Nice, ha ha.

When I went back to the Filipino food booth, their melon drink still wasn't ready, but I snapped a shot of someone's steaming hot arroz caldo.

There were so many big wigs there that day, like Senators Juan Vargas and Ben Hueso, National City Mayor Ron Morrison, various National City council members, as well as Superviser Greg Cox, San Diego council member (and fellow Filipino American Todd Gloria, obscured in this photo by Pres. Ramos), and of course, former President. Fidel Ramos (in hat) shaking hands with another public official.

I happened to be near this contingent of people getting their photos taken with Ramos later on and he was a pretty funny guy. He kept cracking jokes and also expressed (in a humorous way) irritation at all the photo opps. I think he just wanted to sit down and watch the entertainment. I only stayed the until lunch while Bert and TC stayed nearly the whole time.

Below, the PASACAT dancers performing Chotis (a flirtatious dance with Spanish influence).

This was Paso Doble, another Spanish influenced dance.

The little children below performed "Aray":

I like this dance, Binasuan, where a girl (and a guy) balance glasses of water on their head and move their arms gracefully. This is the part where she rolls her body without spilling a drop. Most of the dance is performed while standing.

This was the new chief of National City Police. The dancers called him up as a "volunteer" to do the steps of "Tinikling", where you hop in and out of clapping bamboo poles. They slowed down the steps and the bamboo clapping for him. Overall, he was a very good sport.

The line at the Filipino booth later on. All I wanted was a drink though, so it kind of sucked waiting just for that. While in line, I got bombarded by folks passing out their flyers and business cards (realtor, burial plans at Greenwood, etc).

One of my "stealth" photos. Corn!!!

Our melon drink with shredded cantalope. So refreshing!

I ended up getting two beef lumpias ($1 for 2). Those tacos were someone else's.

I also went back to Niederfranks where the nice young man scooped out two flavors for me.

I preferred the cup to the cone. We all shared this, the Passionfruit sorbet and the Mac nut toffee.

I liked both flavors but it was wierd having them together. The sorbet was mainly for TC since she likes fruit flavors. I was hoping they would have their Cocojack (coconut and jackfruit) but they did not have it that day.

TC got these nachos...

which we shared as well. She had a chicken skewer later on and got some kettlecorn (which was recently finished), both the regular and the caramel.

Since I left early for other errands, I  didn't stick around for the rest of the festival. TC and Bert watched some of the other entertainment (Guro Babao and his Arnis academy, which is Filipino martial arts, plus some sort of singing competition, and Mexican folk dancing). It was heartwarming for me to see many elderly folks there, of all ethnicities. Some of the older Filipino Lolos were wearing their WWII veteran caps or uniforms, as well as American flag pins or neckties.   It was also a kick seeing President Ramos in National City!

I have so many posts just waiting to be put up! It'll be like a unstoppable torrent of diarrhea!!!