The New Family Oriental Mart

This place is pretty much your average Filipino mom and pop (nanay and tatay, haha) store. It’s small inside but they’ve got your basics like mama sita ulam mixes: sinigang, adobo, caldareta, menudo and palabok, of course there’s yan yan, sky flakes crackers and almost everything you need to make any Filipino dish ever made. Run on sentence say what?
The owner also cooks food here which you can purchase if you’re really hungry. Personally I’m only a fan of several Filipino dishes and specifically from certain family members or friends. The adobo here is a little too maasim (sour) for my liking but my God, the saving grace here is the palabok. Unfortunately someone else cooks this prepared pancit dish of perfection but I suppose this mart should also get credit for it. My mom and I grabbed two dishes of palabok and had it for dinner with the family and everyone enjoyed it. Yum!
Unless I’m picking up special request items for my mom when I come up to visit, I pretty much only stop in here for the apple scented car freshener, which is still pretty expensive at almost $ 5.
There’s also a table of Filipino desserts including kucinta, sapin sapin, turon and puto… not too bad but nothing like my Lola Lydia’s desserts.
The owner is very friendly, though I get the feeling he thinks I’m a spoiled American girl who grew up hating the Filipino culture in general. Every time I’m in here with my mom she’s so excited about all the food they have that she’s constantly spouting off things like, «Hey, want some chicharon,» «How about some pan de sal?» And I can’t help but look mildly annoyed when I say «No,» for the umpteenth time. It’s not that I don’t like eating Filipino food, I just have to be in the mood for it. Meh.