Pampanga's Cafe Philippine Cuisine

Pampanga's Cafe @ 5744 Fraser St.

Today we explored Fraser to see if we could find some unusual eats. We discovered that the stretch between 41st Ave. and 49th Ave. has a dense cluster of Chinese, Indian and Philippine restaurants. There was also a dosa place, a Pakistani restaurant and a Taiwanese bubble tea/noodle house.

We opted for the small Philippine hole-in-the-wall at the corner of Fraser and 41st. There is a restaurant serving Philippine Chinese cuisine a bit further south that looks a little bigger, but I wanted to try something a little more authentic than that. This turned out to be just right.

This sign was posted outside:

Whatever it means, I don't know, but it sounded authentic, so in we went!

We didn't know what to expect. Hole in the wall is the perfect term for this place. It's a tiny little space of probably no more than 300 square feet with five little square tables of unvarnished wood and a counter in an inner corner. It's clean and simple and to the point. Homey is the perfect term for this place, both its food and atmosphere. You feel like you're eating a Filipino lady's home cooking.

There was one lady seemingly operating the whole joint all alone. We couldn't spot any menu or prices anywhere, so we approached her to ask what the deal was. She informed us that it's $7.50 for two items plus rice. I don't know if you can order stuff there. We didn't ask. If so, apparently you have to know what it is you want to order, so we just went for the buffet.

This is the counter:

The items available at the time:

As you can see, it's cash only, like many of the smaller Asian restaurants in Vancouver.

If you can't tell from the photo, there are 6 items plus two varieties of dried fish on the side, and one dessert item. I didn't spot any of the other usual sides like empanada or lumpia. It turns out they were being prepared, as I saw her bring them out later on.

Though Pampanga's Cafe has a smaller selection than Josephine's on Main Street, the selection at Pampanga's Cafe is amply sufficient to permit two people to each get a completely different plate and share between the two. Based on my first impression of both places, so far I prefer Pampanga's Cafe. The buffet was also a buck fifty cheaper for pretty much the same thing.

I asked the lady if she could explain what each of the items was, and she carefully listed out the ingredients of each dish while I furiously took notes in my iPhone.

- Pork stomach stew

- Tilapia with black bean sauce, onion and tomato

- Menudo, which is pork liver with potato, tomato sauce and raisins (Kweepo took this)

- Sweet sausage (Kweepo took this)

- Milk fish with vinegar garlic and giner (I took this)

- Pork adobo (I took this)

And dessert:

- Bilobilo, which is tapioca with glutinous rice balls, sweet potatoes, pearls, jack fruit cooked in coconut milk (I ordered this, which was $3.50 extra)

I got a young coconut juice drink ($2.00):

This is Kweepo's order:

Those aren't Roma tomatoes, hey. Those are the tiny sweet sausages. They were indeed very sweet, but my oh my they were really excellent and like no other sausages I've had before. I liked them so much I bought a frozen package of them in a nearby Philippine grocery store! As for the other dish, I'm not usually keen on liver, but I tasted Kweepo's Menudo just to get into the swing of things, and it wasn't half bad. The sauce really makes it.

This was my order:

That's the pork adobo in the top right and the milk fish in the bottom right. The pork adobo was great, a bit salty as seems to be typical of many Philippine dishes, but not nearly as salty as the Pork adobo I had at Josephine's. The milkfish was good, but it lives up to its reputation for being notoriously bony, which made it somewhat annoying to eat. Worse, it was VERY sour from the vinegar, to the point that I couldn't finish it. This is something I've noticed with Philippine cuisine - they tend to oversalt or put too much vinegar. I probably should have gotten the tilapia instead.

The portions of both were just right. Not stuffing, but enough to leave full. The price is decent, although again I wish they made it possible to try more things for that price rather than just two. They had some dried fish on the side I was curious about, and though there was none under the counter when we placed our orders, I saw the lady bring out some fresh lumpia rolls afterwards. I wish they gave one complementary with each order.

This was the bilobilo dessert:

It was amazing. The glutinous rice balls were soooo soft and chewy, and all of the other ingredients were just a perfect match with each other. Even the sweet potato tasted wonderful, as there were only a few very small pieces. It's not a good thing that the best part of a meal is the dessert, but that was the case here. The rest was good in a very rustic kind of way. I'd say this is a good place for Philippine home cooking if I knew what I was talking about, but I won't since I don't. But that's what it felt like.

They even had Philippine salted eggs, which are colored purple merely to distinguish them from normal eggs. She explained that they are eaten with chopped tomatoes and something else I don't remember. I've got to get some of these the next time I see some. I'm really curious to know what they taste like.

I was looking up salted eggs just now and I ran across another kind of egg eaten in the Philippines - Balut. For when you like your eggs to give you nightmares.

While we were eating a family of Filipinos came in and ordered some take-out. Otherwise nobody else came in the whole time and the lady was out of sight in the back. Kind of sad. Hang in there! I suppose the rent way out here is cheaper, and they have a regular fan base of expats to support them.

Next door to the restaurant there was a Philippine grocery store with the same name as the restaurant. I guess they must be run by the same family?