Ethnic Eats – Sampling the World’s Cuisine Without Leaving Vancouver

The whole block around Aling Mary’s on Main Street smells fresh and doughy and faintly sweet. That tempting smell is tripled the moment you open the door and the source can be found stacked under a faux beach hut display in the centre of the store: rows and rows of pan de sal, a salted Filipino bun soft as pillows.

They look no different than a dinner roll, but the aroma of fresh bread combined with the supreme softness of the dough makes biting into them such a joy. I was only going to order a couple, but they come still warm, a dozen buns filling a paper bag for only $3.50. Two were gone by the time I got to the bus stop a few blocks away and while they’re not quite as good the next day, the rest of them didn’t last long.

In my wide-eyed scan of items available in a Filipino grocery, I also purchased some steamed cassava with shredded coconut, a bibingka cake and some jars of jackfruit and Macapuno.

The latter I bought only because it had the words “gelatinous mutant coconut” on the side of the jar and I couldn’t bear the thought of not trying something so awesome. I thought that was simply a poor translation, but research reveals that Macapuno is the fruit of a coconut which has actually undergone a kind of mutation,  making the meat more mushy and gelatinous. So, dipping into the fruit, I expected it to taste coconutty. It does to some extent, but the flavour is subtle. Mostly it tasted like a sweeter and softer tapioca ball from a bubble tea drink.  I had a couple of them before I moved on to the jackfruit, and I while I didn’t hate the Macapuno, I can’t really see a use for them.

The jackfruit on the other hand, will be escorted out of the house immediately. My partner describes the smell as somewhere between puke and fruit cocktail, with an underlying scent of decay and the taste is…not far off. The texture of the canned fruit is nonexistent and just falls apart in your mouth tongue while you try to eat it, leaving a somewhat chemically and rotten aftertaste on your tongue. Wikipedia says that it’s “something of an acquired taste” so maybe I need to try it several hundred more times before I like it.

The steamed cassava was quite tasty and I wasn’t overly fond of the bibingka, but I’m sure that has more to do with the fact that I don’t like cake than with the actual taste of it. I did like the addition of shredded coconut to both items.

I’ll be back soon to get some more pan de sal, and maybe they can get me a recipe for Macapuno balls too.

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Aling Mary

2656 Main Street, Vancouver