But I love it!
Our families plus their relatives were there at his house relaxing and reminiscing about Ninang. My parents brought a gripload of food, enough to feed an army, but of course, that is typical Filipino hospitality. Enough of this, on with the food!
Bite sized lumpias - these were half the size of a normal lumpia. I liked them but not as much as the one we brought (from JNC Pinoy Foodmart).
My other godbro (the younger one) ordered these Kalbi ribs from a local L&L...
Here are the lumpias from JNC...
Don't you love seeing all that foil? We don't need no high class containers, ha ha!
This was Filipino menudo (made by my mom) - beef with peas, potatoes, garbanzos and red peppers. For the non Filipnos at the reception, it was explained simply as "beef stew". I'm sure it was easier for the whitefolk to comprehend than the scary sounding menudo because of the association with the Mexican version of menudo which has tripe (this does not).
There were two kinds of mac salads. The one at the top was from L&L; the one at the bottom was made by my mom. Of course, my mom's was better. She uses real chicken in hers along with bits of red pepers, celery, pineapple and cheese.
My mom's chicken adobo turned out to the be hit for the Filipino food starved crowd. Although my godbro's and sis are Filipino, they didn't really grow up eating Filipino food. My Ninang didn't cook it all that much and they really only had it at Filipino parties.
Other than the overabundance of black peppercorns, this dish was just the way I liked it. My mom does not make "soupy" adobo. This is dry but good! She actually takes out the chicken pieces (after they are cooked), lets the sauce reduce and fries the pieces in a separate pan THEN adds the chicken pieces back in. My mom also uses annatto powder to give the adobo a reddish orange tinge. Her other secret ingredient is ginger. The result is a really strong and flavorful adobo devoid of soupy mess
Some other relatives from LA brought SIX BOXES from Porto's!!!!! I wanted to kiss their feet for bringing this. Well, not really, but you know what I mean!
They were all filled with cream cheese pastries!!!!
OMG, we took home a half dozen! These weren't going to last long.
Someone else brought Bibingka royale...
This is the fancy kind baked on a banana leaf...
This last tray held turon, banana fritters (or banana lumpia). I've had better; these wrappers were too thick and the banana was not that sweet.
Not shown were a platter of assorted cookies from Costco and a huge bowl filled with ripe golden yellow guavas and persimmons which were for guests to help themselves and take home. One of the aunts brought it form her backyard. I also forgot to take a photo of the pancit bihon that my sis ordered from JNC. To tell you the truth, it wasn't that great. We ended up using fresh and juicy lemons from my godbro's tree as accompaniments to the pancit. Oh yeah, my mom also brought this ginormous rice cooker which had about 20 cups worth of cooked rice! I guess my godbro and his family were going to have fried rice for days with those leftovers!
After the reception, our original plan was to go to JJ's, a new ice cream and cupcake place off of Clairemont Mesa Blvd but instead we went to Zion. My sis was curious about it and it would also give me the opportunity to try a new dessert place that had opened up there...
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