I live in a town where I can find 5 Filipino restaurants in a 5 mile radius. So when I came to Phoenix for work, I wanted to see what the Filipino restaurant scene was like.

Like the previous reviewer stated, there are very few Filipino eateries. The supermarket that I found on my GPS was closed, so I found this one on Yelp. Overall, I would recommend to go to support the local Filipino restaurant.

When you first walk in, you start in the bake shop area where you'll find cakes and pastries on display. I wasn't sure if I could seat myself, but I was greeted and seated. There were two other tables filled with about 8 people eating including myself. What concerned me is that 2 of the other folks were the only other Filipinos - as I tend to judge all ethnic restaurants by the number of people of the same ethnicity.

But that logic doesn't seem to work here were the demographics of Filipinos seems relatively low.

I was craving Sisig (grilled pork - which is my favorite at Ongpin in South San Francisco) - but they didn't have that. On the whiteboard, they had Sinigang na Baboy (pork) - so I figured I couldn't go wrong with one of my favorites.

Since I was here on business, I figured I'll order a few other things including the shanghai lumpia (eggrolls), Halo Halo, and topped it off with Hot Pandesal.

The Sinigang was served in a bowl with 3 pieces of boneless pork. The meat was very tender and you can pull it apart with a spoon and fork. The soup was a little on the salty side since they may have put a little more tamarind mix, but that I might just be a little oversensitive about my sodium intake.

I couldn't help but think that I was eating at home or a family friend's house. Included in the sinigang was spinach, string beans, eggplant, a small potato, and cut onions. What was missing was dikons (those white radish things). It wasn't bad, and it wasn't exceptionally delicious because nothing compares to home made sinigang. But this would be the next best thing. I ate all the meat, and had quite a few eggplants left.

The shanghai lumpia came out shortly afterwards. The portion was pretty large and I could have shared it with someone else. I didn't care for sauce that it came with. I wanted vinigar, but a filipino family came in and there was only one server.

If you ever had Halo Halo at Ongpin, you'd find this lacking. It is served it a large plastic cup. What was missing is the ube ice cream. In fact, there was hardly any ube in it. There was a spoonfull of the leche flan, but I didn't finish it.

I actually ordered the Pandesal later, this version was like two very large dinner rolls served with butter. The bread had a fresh out of the oven taste.

The restaurant section was clean, with standard fare dining. There was a large flatscreen tv with TFC playing.

Last week, when I ate there, they were just written about in the local paper, but I didn't get to read the review.

They accept Master Card and Visa, but not American express.

I would eat here again to try some of their other dishes not because I want to support my fellow Filipinos, but because the food is actually worth having again. I took some photos of each dish with my iPhone, so I'll have to figure out how to upload them.

This is actually my first review because I was hoping to read more about Philippine restaurants in the area, I only saw this one. So I figured, I should also contribute!