La Nueva Bakery 3x + Parol Festival 2014

Earlier today was the Pasacat Parol Lantern Festival...

Like last  year, it also rained, but luckily, not as hard. As you can see, the sun did come out that afternoon. However before heading to the building, I first went to the bakery across the street from Asian Cafe...

I remember the flaky pastry I had last year and wanted to see if they had it again. During my last visit on a weekday, they didn't have any of the pastries.

Lo and behold, they did have them! They had several varieties including bean and cheese, cheese and chile, picadillo and just beans.  I got the picadillo this time as well as the cheese and chili (same as last year). These are $2 each.

These photos were taken on the dashboard of my car (nice, eh) and on the passenger seat.  Both of these were heated up by the nice lady at the bakery and shared with Bert who was already at the building helping to set up the props backstage.  I'm glad that the picadillo flavor was there that day. Now that I know how good it is and when they serve it, I'll definitely be back for more. Either that or make it myself but with puff pastry. Bert liked both, but felt that they should have insterspersed more of the japaleno peppers throughout the cream cheese filling, as it was only in the middle.


I also got one of these fluted muffins, this one with raisins. Last year, I had the one with walnuts.


They were scattered at the top and clumped at the bottom. I guess that makes it easy for someone to pick out if they're not fond of raisins but luckily I do like them.

For the fourth year in a row, the Pasacat Parol Lantern Festival  was held at the Joe and Vi Jacobs Center for Innovation on Euclid and Market. The stage banner reads "Merry Christmas" and "Happy New Year' in Tagalog. It's the same one used year after year. The 3-D star in the middle of the stage is a five-pointed star or parol. It symbolizes the star which led the Three Kings to Jesus. If you see smaller versions of this in any windows, chances are, it's a Filipino's house.

The center wasn't quite fully decorated yet. Many of the older company dancers were hard at work setting up the cultural displays which included costumes from the various regions of the Philippines, books, instruments, and jewelry.

Parols made of capiz and installed with blinking lights...

A bahay kubo (thatched raised hut)...

This cultural display depicts the Tinikling, the national dance of the Philippines in which dancers exhibit their skill in hopping in an out of rhythmically clapped bamboo poles. In this dance, performers imitate the tikling bird, which tries to dodge bamboo traps set by rice farmers in the paddies.


The pabitin - The Philippine version of the pinata, in which toys are strung (or in this case binder clipped) to a lattice. It is raised and lowered while young kids jump up and try to grab the hanging toys,

This year the food was catered from Christy's, an eatery in Mira Mesa. In the past, the food was cooked by the parents, then the Center got all uptight and said only folks with food handling licenses could cook the food in their kitchens. Then this year, the Center, which is under new management decreed that Pasacat couldn't provide the food anymore and that the center had to provide it, at greater cost and that their staff had to serve it instead of parent volunteers. That kind of sucked. So, as a result, ticket prices were higher ($15 to $18 instead of $10 - $12).

The "merienda" included pancit (two kinds were available, one with tofu and another with chicken), banana turon, Shanghai lumpia and putong puti (which I don't like so I didn't get it). Beverages included water, coffee and calamansi juice in cans. In previous years, the calamnsi came from concentrate in bottles.


I got the tofu pancit by mistake, not realizing there was one with chicken. Ugh! Sorry, but I am not a tofu fan at all. Once I realized it, it was too late so I had to keep it on my plate.

Finally, the costumes were up...

This turned out to be the winning parol in the parol contest. This was different because it didn't have a bamboo frame. Instead, it was on cardboard with embellishments glued on top, many of them handmade. The tails were also handmade and instead of being tissue paper, they were fabric scraps. It was very creative.


Parol making workshops were offered ($10 for a parol kit). Unlike last year, the bamboo frames were NOT assembled so folks had to make it themselves with glue guns.


Asides from the Junior dancers (ages 3 - 12) who performed Philippine folk dance and the Senior dancers (ages 14 and up), there were other cultures represented, included the Laissa Polynesian Dance Group (Tahitian/Polynesian), the MiOck Korean Dance Academy from Los Angeles (they were amazing), and the Paloma Aragon Arte Flamenco group. Every group was awesome in their own right.



I'd never seen Korean dance and drumming before and like me, the audience was mesmerized by their precision drumming and their graceful and elegant dances.



Wow, this was really cool to see when they bent over backwards and then rotated within the space, all the while drumming in perfect sync.




The mountain suite for the Senior Company's portion of the performance, followed by dances of Spanish and Muslim influence...



The finale features dancers carring mini and large parols on sticks singing Philippine Christmas songs.

This year's performance used some of the dances performed at Extravaganza, which was a visual treat. The kids/teens/young adults did a great job and it was great to see a full house despite the rainearlier that day.

Previous visit to La Nueva Bakery:
October 2014

Last year's Parol Festival
2013 (this post links all of the past Festivals up to 2006)

Until next year's festivities!