Visiting Conching's Cafe and Ice Cream Parlor at National City

I was really excited to visit Conching's Cafe and Ice Cream Parlor this weekend as I have been longing for some good halo-halo and a quality filipino place.  Looking at their website I was imagining a very nice place to have lunch, something like Max's Fried Chicken, with authentic filipino food and more of an upscale atmosphere.  I was very suprised though when I got there because the place looked nothing like the website!  I should have known as the discription was "cafe" instead of "restaurant".  The cafe and ice cream parlor was in a white really old building with black grills on its door and windows.

It was one of the four all Asian establishments downstairs. The place was really big but really old.  The ice cream parlor just made me more worried more than wanting to order. So I skipped the parlor and went in line for the food.

There were a lot of customers today at lunch.  There was plenty of choices when it came to food.  There was probably at least ten different entree choices, ten different deserts and I picked a two entree with rice combo, menudo and pork barbecue.

My husband has been looking for a pork barbecue that he had tasted a long time ago from a filipino friend's house and he said after tasting the pork that this was the closest one he ever tasted.  My daughter enjoyed the sauces of the menudo over her rice.  The food was good. They do provide huge servings.  They gave me two scoops of rice and filled both parts of the tray for the menudo where usual fastfood or turo-turo places just give you one scoop of rice and just fill one part for the entree.  I paid for $7.62 without a drink oh and by the way, THEY ONLY TAKE CASH!

While the whole place was really old, probably around thirty years old or more and the hallways give you the creeps as it just doesn't look sanitary, their kitchen looked really clean, the servers wore hairnets and aprons.  The cashier never smiled and was just straight to business but that was my experience too in National City, just like how it is in Philippines.  --MaG