Valerio's Tropical Bakeshop

This post is a combo of three separate visits over the past week and a half at the Seafood City in Chula Vista...

which houses a variety of other Filipino eateries and bakeries in their food court. Although Valerio's City Bakery in Otay Mesa is now gone, another Valerio's exists  at this Filipino food mecca...

Towards the west entrance to Seafood City is Valerio's Tropical Bakeshop which is next to Filipino Desserts Plus.

The food court is on this section of the market.

Because it was a weekend, they were offering these special ube and macapuno bread loaves (purple yam and coconut). This visit's photo also shows the pure ube bread loaf. Each mini loaf is .75. You can also buy a half dozen in a package for $4.50. They do not make these any other time of the week. Underneath the loaves are cream cheese rolls (in a type of sweet bread), and another type of cheese roll (kind of like a puff pastry roll; there is also an ube version that wasn't available that day).

This photo is from my most recent visit, which was yesterday. I just love the look of the bi-colored loaves. So pretty and yes, they are as tasty as they look!

This is the Christmas display tower you see at the west entrance, surrounded by bags of rice, canned fruits, flavor packets, noodles, and Filipino snacks. I love how each ethnic grocery store has their own take of their holiday towers.

Every time I've gone to Valerio's, they always have banana leaf wrapped suman by the front counter. In the hot case by the register are their empanadas which I'm currently obsessed with (name the beef one).

Their other hot case has pan de sal with various savory filling like corned beef, Philly steak, chicken, beef, and adobo. They are $1.99 each. I've bought a corned beef one in the past for TC.

As I was standing there, a worker rolled out a rack of freshly baked pan de sal and other goodies. The customer in front of me was specifically waiting for this fresh batch. She bought about two dozen pan de sal.

Inside the bakery are two long tables with various sweets and snack items. On the table on the left were packages of kutsinta, sweet rice, purple rice, and putong puti (white puto). The table tot he right had red bean filled  fried dough balls, turon (banana fritters), ukoy (sweet potato and shrimp fritters), lumpia, and bibingkang galapong (rice cake baked in a banana leaf). They use a pretty thick cut sweet potato for their ukoy (these are meant to be eaten with a vinegar garlic dip).

I grew up eating these kinds of snacks but they were only for special occasions. Back then, if you wanted something like this, you had to make it yourself. My parents were old school. They made everything from scratch and for that, I am grateful.

This particular visit, I bought an ube/macapuno loaf for the first time, a beef empanada (recommended by the lady working the counter when asked which was her favorite), and a package of Hopyang Langka (hopia filled with jackfruit).

Sometimes they have round pans of ube haleya (ube cooked with milk), but I haven't seen it lately. The last time I bought it was last year when I made ube macapuno turnovers.

I ended up liking this so much I bought two my next visit (I thought a half dozen was too excessive but would make a great food/hostess gift).

There are two types of empanadas at this Valerio's, the chicken and the beef ($1.79 each). Both look very different. I got the beef because the worker said it was the one she preferred. The beef filling is finely minced and contains onions, potatoes, carrots, and peas.

The crust is also quite thick and crimped quite beautifully.

Later at home, one of the jackfruit hopias (I plan to do a "hopia" only post before the end of this year but still have a few more bakeries to hit up for comparison). I've seen this shape before but usually with the "baboy" filling (not pork, as the name would imply but with onions). I like jackfruit so I thought this would taste good.

It actually did NOT taste good at all. It was hard on the outside and the inside. The jackfruit filling texture was too hard and there were no flakey layers like I associate hopia to have. This was one of the worst versions of any kind of hopia I've ever had. This was a waste of my $$$.

Back to that ube macapuno bread...when broken apart, you can see the sticky macapuno strings...

The bread is so soft and it was a hit with TC. Definitely NOT a waste of my $$$. Only .75 per loaf yo'.

A more recent visit had me buying both flavors of the empanadas. This time, I bought the chicken.

The dough used for the chicken was different. It was softer and brushed with egg yolk. It did not have a crisp edge.

The chicken filling inside was also finely shredded and had onions and carrots within.

It kind of tasted like that potted chicken spread (which I actually like) but with more texture.

Of the two, I still liked the beef much better. Bert liked the chicken more than the beef and ended up finishing it off.

Here they are, side by side. The beef wins out for me every time. It's bigger, has better crust and edges and it's the same price. More for your money, I say. If I could tweak the beef filling, I would add raisins to it.

Valerio's Tropical Bakeshop (located in Seafood City, Chula Vista location)
285 E. Orange Ave
Chula Vista, CA 91911
(619) 420-8340

If you wish to try the ube macapuno rolls, they will have them the day before Christmas. They also do special orders if you need them on a day other than a weekend.

Only a couple of more days 'til Christmas...