FASD Filipiniana Philippine Café Halo Halo, Bubble Tea, Ube Cake in Tampa FL

It has not rained for days, and the temperature is up to 90 degrees now. When the weather is sweltering hot, I cannot help but fiendishly crave shaved ice desserts. When I heard Filipiniana Philippine Café just opened in a newly built mini strip mall off of Waters Avenue, and claims to have the best Halo Halo shaved ice dessert, I drove an hour from Bradenton just to give them a try.

Halo Halo is a shaved ice dessert, covered in various toppings, all floating in milk. Toppings vary from maker to maker, and at Filipiniana are; mung bean, kidney bean, cubed flan, green pandan crispies, coconut meat shavings, ube (taro) mash, and a scoop of custardy vanilla ice cream. At Filipiniana, they have the best Halo Halo I have ever eaten.

Since the location is brand spankin’ new, the space is immaculate and has a Halo Halo theme. The walls are brightly colored. In the back seating area, the walls are dark purple imitating ube extract coloring, often the color of ube ice cream or cake. The pictures on the walls are of different toppings used in Halo Halo. The staff is super sweet and asked me over and over again, “How do you know about Halo Halo?”

Filipiniana also serves coffee, smoothies, and bubble tea. I love bubble tea, and tried the Green Apple Tea with Tapioca. It was fine, but not my favorite bubble tea in Tampa.

The pastry case varies daily. Luckily, when we visited there were large slices of Ube Cake in the case, the deep violet hue of the sponge cake and the soft fluffy princess frosting stark against the purple palette calling my name. This Ube Cake is spectacular, and I ate it slowly as I watched crowds of customers arrive from the restaurant next door to quickly buy up the supply.

I’m really excited that they serve Taho, tofu custard in browned sugar sauce. Sometimes flavored with ginger in the syrup, and often served with sago (white tapioca) pearls. Next time, I’ll definitely check it out, because it is my favorite served the Chinese way at the local dim sum place.

It is great that they are a dessert only shop, but we are definitely missing some decent Filipino savory foods in the bay area.

Filipiniana Philippine Café
3848 W Waters Ave
Tampa, FL 33614

New York Trip and 1st Vlog

I was in Manhattan for work for only one night and two days.  It was totally action packed every moment with vendor appointments, comp shopping, food-acquiring, and other miscellaneous adventures.  My camera ran out of battery, but I tried to film as much as possible with what I had. 

My co-worker there is actually one of my buyers.  She is super cool, and that's all you need to know. 
The hotel ran out of regular rooms, so I got a penthouse suite--- sweet.  We stay in the Manhattan Koreatown area, known as Murray Hill, in midtown.  Later hours, after we are done with work, I often go out exploring and sometimes continue to shop for work.  This time, I was lucky enough to meet up with both of my cousins that live there in the same night! 

Since we were shopping at Union Square--- For lunch we hit up my first-love Saints Alp Teahouse in the East Village (3rd Ave around 11th st).  I really wanted to take my co-worker to one of the Izakaya houses in St. Marks, but they are not open until dinnertime.  Saints Alp has some ok Lu Rou Fan (five spice pork over rice with tea eggs), and some matcha toast with condensed milk.  The main focus is the bubble tea though!  My favorite being the classic black tea with milk and boba, followed by iced black tea with grapefruit and agar, at this location. 

Deb is my new cousin-in-law, but she has always been family to me.  She met up with me and we took the 7 train out to Flushing Main Street--- Where we met up with my buddy Lesie (who is also awesome).  We immediately went to the New World Mall to hit up their Food Court, which is packed with local Chinese-Taiwanese food stalls.  We got some Takoyaki there, because I tried to get some earlier and failed at lunchtime.  After that, we tried a dessert stall, where we got some shaved ice with black sticky rice and mango. 

Then, Lesie took us to 101 Cafe where we ate some Taiwanese Sausages, Oyster Pancake, and Pork Bao (the Bao was massive).  Also, we had some 3 Cups Chicken.  That was followed by the Three Brothers Bubble Tea at Coco on Main Street.

My cousin Shelley flew in from Chicago that night, with luggage and all, came to meet up with us in Flushing.  I think it was almost midnight at that point and we were all tired.  But, it was so nice to see Shelley!!!  We all visited with Lesie, until it was her bedtime. 

We ate some breakfast at the hotel and then headed to our last and biggest appointment to work for hours.  After that, we went to my favorite Korean BBQ place in Manhattan, called Ma Dang Sui (pronounced "Ma-dang-sway").  They were having a Spicy Pork lunch special, and their Dwen-jang-jigae, that is complimentary, is my favorite. 

After that, we went shopping in Soho, Little Italy, and then Chinatown Manhattan--- before taking the subway back to the hotel to pick up our stuff and go home.  I filmed some videos there of the Cherry Blossom trees in the park and my favorite Green Barley Tea at Teariffic, but those videos are still trapped on my phone.

This is my first video ever!  Making the video with my not-so-great camera is also not helping the quality of the video either.  I found out also... that if I do not script what I am going to say in the video or in the voice over, that it comes out terrible (whether I am speaking English/Korean).