While in the Palm Springs area for a 5 day visit with my wife and my mother-in-law, I made it a…read morepoint to visit a couple of Filipino restaurants. With a recent expansion to their space in Cathedral City, this location has become a gathering place for Filipinos in the Coachella Valley area. Thus we went out of our way to find this place for dinner. I found it to be mixed, and can't really recommend their food.
It's a nice space inside, with a fast casual setup (order and pay first, and the food is brought to you when ready). It wasn't particularly friendly when we first arrived to the empty restaurant, but it got better as we ordered and ate.
Cheesesteak Philly Style ($15.99) and Apong's Special Philly Style ($16.99). They come with fries, with an upcharge of $1 for cheese. Both had grilled mushrooms and onions mixed with the chopped steak. The Apong's special adds both cheese whiz and american cheese to the standard provolone. Both are served on Amoroso rolls from Philadelphia, which is genuine, but not particularly fresh when brought in daily. (the rolls tasted a bit stale to me). The amount of meat given could induce a hungry person to order a double portion as well, though it was just right this day. I definitely like my cheese steak with cheese whiz, and this version confirmed that (though if not offered, a good dallop of mayo is good as well, mixed with the melted provolone).
Strangely, the showstring fries were the most disappointing part of the meal for me...fries can be good if the right effort is made, but that wasn't the case here. They had been deep fried a while before, and had been sitting in a warmer until served to us...thus were dried out and pretty flavorless. With what we ordered, a new batch of freshly made fries would have gone a long way to put us in a good mood, especially for dine-in.
Chicken Mami Soup ($14.99) - a large bowl of chicken soup. For this price, would have hoped for something more homemade. The broth was fine, but seemed to be made from either canned chicken broth (benefit of doubt) or more likely chicken powder. Also used dried spaghetti noodles, which is not something I seek out. It did have pieces of white meat (breast) and fresh chopped vegetables like cabbage and carrots. Tasted fine, but wasn't particularly hearty. Reminded me very much of saiman, except for the price.
Halo-Halo ($14.99) - it was good. Few beans (which is often used as filler), but instead large pieces of sweet plantains. It also had plenty of condensed milk and two large scoops of ice cream (both ube and vanilla). Used crushed ice, instead of shaved, which does make a big difference in consistency, but understand it's harder to do since time consuming.
Apong means grandmother in Ilicano, which is the third most spoken native language in the Philippines, after Tagalog and Cebuano. The owners and workers seemed to be originally from that region; and it's really nice to use such a nice term of endearment for their endeavor.