The Best Snacks and Drinks to Buy at a Filipino Grocery Store

Pick up crunchy cornicks, sweet hopia, and more on your next shopping trip.

filipino grocery store
Design by Maitane Romagosa for Thrillist
Design by Maitane Romagosa for Thrillist

I have a complicated relationship with Filipino food. The cuisine itself is complex, too. By force of circumstance and survival, it incorporates centuries of external influences from pre-colonial Chinese traders, 333 years of Spanish colonial rule, 50 years under the American flag, and then a few years of Japanese occupation.

When I moved to the U.S. in my 30s, the ingredients and dishes I grew up with took a backseat to the world of global flavors suddenly available to me. In Dallas, where I live, talented cooks prepare Arabic, Lao, American barbecue, and other cuisines all within a few miles of my home.

But, after almost a decade in this country, I find myself longing for the flavors of the motherland. The snacks and drinks sold at Filipino grocery stores are a convenient and tangible way to feed the hungry beast that is nostalgia and longing.

Summer get-togethers in the scorching Texas heat entail icy pitchers of calamansi, pineapple, or mango juice blended with sweet tea. When I visit Filipino friends, I take home zippered bags of pasalubong filled with polvoron, chocnut, or tablea tsokolate to be turned into a mug of hot tsokolate—even better when paired with ensaimada.

The Dallas area does not share the same density of Filipino Americans per square mile as Los Angeles or San Francisco. So, access to the breadth of our cuisine is not as immediate, but it’s still workable. I visit Filipino supermarkets whenever I find myself in Houston, southern California, Chicago, and Seattle. Or, I go to Woodside in New York City to cobble together a Filipino food care package for myself and to share with other homesick Filipinos.

To me, the crinkle of a bag of snacks, an open mouth sharing chismis, the chew of merienda, and the slurp of the bottom of a can of juice are the soundtrack of bonds forged, then and now. Because, really, there’s no taste like home.

Our favorite snacks and drinks

Saltine crackers
Wheat doesn’t grow in the Philippines. So, how did a wheat cracker cement itself into the culture? From the late 19th century to the 1940s, U.S. colonization brought this highly portable blank canvas of a snack to Philippine shores. The iconic red, white, and blue packaging of SkyFlakes brand even points towards this American heritage. Other popular brands include Croley Foods’ Sunflower Crackers and Magic Flakes.

Fondly called “biskwet,” as in biscuit, one can buy the plain variety to be slathered with whatever one fancies, or you might opt for the sandwich form, stuffed with cream fillings. I particularly enjoy mashing butter with Spanish sardines atop my saltines, or I might go with guava jam.

Pandesal
Pandesal is the bread of life for Filipinos. In the Philippines, they’re sold in neighborhood bakeries and peddled by bicyclists with a signature honk of their horn, earning the bread the nickname “pot-pot.”

Powdered with yesterday’s pandesal crumbs, their light crust crackles at the slightest pressure and contains a pillowy interior that can have sweet and savory flavors. Popular pandesal spreads and fillings include coconut jam, Cheez Whiz, or Star margarine or butter sprinkled with sugar. Or, you can just enjoy it plain, dunked into coffee or tsokolate.

Some stores now sell its viral offspring, the ube cheese pandesal, which has a royal purple color and savory cheese filling.

Lucky Me Pancit Canton
Lucky Me Pancit Canton is a packaged, instant version of a beloved Chinese heritage dish that has graced nearly every Filipino dining table. A milder, more savory version of the Asian instant stir fry noodles, this was the taste of my teens in the 1990s. Topped with a crispy fried egg for protein, or tossed in a chop suey of vegetables, it makes for a quick and filling merienda, or midnight snack.

The original is my favorite, but Lucky Me Pancit Canton also comes in calamansi, chili-mansi, and hot chile varieties.

Polvoron
This buttery shortbread cookie made from nut flour, butter, sugar, and spices is found in all of Spain’s former colonies, but takes slightly different forms around the world. For Filipinos, the powdery treat is made from roasted wheat flour, powdered milk, sugar, and butter. It is never baked, so it doesn’t have the crispy outer shell of many of its colonial cousins. Instead, it’s toasted in a pan, formed by packing tightly into an aluminum mold and traditionally packaged in cellophane wrap.

I prefer the Goldilocks’ original or pinipig varieties, but there are also ube, cookies and cream or coffee flavors available.

Samalamig or palamig
Samalamig or palamig is an entire category of sweet drinks. The Filipino version of aguas frescas, they’re often sold in vitrolero or 3- or 5-gallon jars, and made with tropical fruit juices, sugary liquids, and milky concoctions. The primary purpose of samalamig or palamig is to cool one down.

While you may not see them in the same colossal containers in your local Filipino grocery store, you can buy individual portions in cans or Tetra Paks. Gina and Philippine Brand are the most ubiquitous labels, and their flavors include mango, calamansi, guava, guyabano or soursop, and four seasons, a blend of four juices.

Cornicks
A crunchy, salty, and habit-forming snack, cornicks are made from corn, which is not an indigenous ingredient to the Philippines. Cornicks are another gift from the New World that was adapted to the landscape and dining tables across the Philippines. Kernels of a specific corn variety are removed from the cob, boiled, dried, fried into puffy globules, and seasoned with salt. Cornicks can be paired with soda for merienda, or an ice cold bottle of San Miguel Pale Pilsen as pulutan or bar snacks.

The most popular cornicks brand is Boy Bawang, which translates to “garlic boy.” It is testament of our intense love for garlic, even in our snacks.

Hopia
The Chinese influence in Filipino cuisine is also evident in hopia, a sweet pastry that comes in two forms: flaky hockey pucks or chewy cubes filled with a variety of mashed beans and vegetables. Traditional fillings include monggo or mung bean, pulang monggo or red bean, ube, kondol or winter melon and baboy, or pork mixed with winter melon. Much like pandesal, ube-cheese hopias are also available. But I love the diced hopia pulang monggo and sweet hopia baboy the most. There are a number of older Chinoy, or Chinese Filipino, bakery brands like Eng Bee Tin and Cebu La Fortuna Bakery available in stores or online.

Choc Nut
Neither peanut butter nor chocolate bar, Choc Nut is a mixture of the two that’s transformed into a flavor of its own. The crumbly, gritty peanut texture and sweet chocolate is a nostalgic flavor for many of us who grew up in the Philippines in the 80s and 90s. The signature white-and-red-striped wrapper is a reminder of days spent walking to the sari-sari store in tsinelas and buying a few pesos worth of Choc Nut to share with friends. In the early 2010s, a rumored shake up in the ownership of Choc Nut gave birth to Hany, a newer brand of extremely similar candy. Discerning palates claim to be able to distinguish between the two.

Tablea Tsokolate
When temperatures dip, it’s time to bring out the Filipino hot beverage of choice: a mug of hot, creamy tsokolate. You can purchase these chocolate tablets in Filipino grocery stores, and then add them to steaming milk or water, wait for it to dissolve, and mix.

This hot drink is another legacy from the country’s historical relationship with Mexico, but note that the Filipino version does not have spices like cinnamon or chili. Tsokolate is just cocoa, sugar, maybe a little powdered milk, and a whole lot of love.

Ensaimada
Ensaimada is another edible footprint of Spanish colonization. Its rich, sweet, brioche-like dough is made with butter, margarine, or lard, and is coiled into a snail shape. The Filipino version is breadier and chewier than its Mallorcan cousin, which has more of a melt-in-your-mouth consistency.

In the Philippines, ensaimada is often slathered with margarine or butter, sprinkled with sugar, and topped with processed cheese brought over by Americans. Personally, I prefer mine toasted, pressed, and paired with a mug of thick tsokolate. Red Ribbon Bakery or Goldilocks are the most popular Philippine bakery brands that sell ensaimadas in the U.S.

Where to buy Filipino snacks and drinks

Approximately 29% of the 4.2 million Filipinos living in the United States reside in major metropolitan areas in California, most notably Los Angeles and San Francisco. These markets are home to dedicated Filipino grocery stores such as Island Pacific or Seafood City, which carry all of these snacks and drinks—and even more.

In New York City, you can head to Woodside, Queens, home to the now-renamed Little Manila Avenue, a nod to the large concentration of Filipinos living in the neighborhood.

In other portions of the country, look for Asian grocery chains like 99 Ranch or H-Mart, which carry these products in a designated Filipino aisle. If that’s not an option, Say Weee is also a great option to get Filipino products delivered to your doorstep.

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Didi Paterno is a contributor to Thrillist.