It’s that time of year when people prepare for the season with much anticipation, and that includes what food to serve during the holidays. How many of you have already been assigned what to bring for a family potluck for Christmas eve dinner or Noche Buena? Not only food satisfies cravings but it also triggers memories of how you celebrated the holiday season growing up, especially the traditional Christmas in the Philippines.
For Supreme Ice Cream Shoppe owners, Jeffrey and Kay Rosales, along with their daughter, Kayden, catering to their patrons’ craving for an authentic Filipino Christmas flavor and vibe was their mission four years ago when they introduced their traditionally made puto bumbong or purple rice cake steamed in bamboo tubes
and bibingka or glutinous rice cake.
It gives them joy knowing that they can feed their kababayans’ craving for a Christmas that reminds them of home.
Supreme Ice Cream Shoppe is best known for its Halo-halo, especially during summer.
But come winter season, puto bumbong and bibingka take centre stage.
“People think we are closed during the winter because we mainly serve halo-halo and ice cream,” owner Kay Rosales said.
“So I thought we should introduce something for the winter.”
Kay, together with her husband, Jeffrey, thought of puto bumbong and bibingka as they are also fit for the Christmas season.
The goal was to serve nothing but the authentic version of both Christmas food.
“We did some research. We interviewed people who make it in the Philippines. Sinamahan namin yung tindera,” narrated Kay.
The process was not easy at first. They did a lot of trial and error. The couple did not expect it was harder than it looked.
“It looks easy when you’re watching it but if you make it yourself, there are tricks and techniques,” shared Kay.
Fast forward to today, they have 4 units of bamboo steamers catering to 50-60 orders of puto bumbong during weekdays and over 100 orders during weekends. They make the purple glutinous rice from scratch using a rice processor.
“I believe there’s nobody making the puto bumbong the traditional way. We are the first to bring bamboo steamers here,” Kay said. “The bamboo tube steamers bring out the authentic flavour.”
They also make their bibingka from scratch and they make it on a per-order per-day basis only to keep it fresh and flavorful.
After the Rosales couple mastered the process of making the perfectly-tasting puto bumbong, they kept it and it has been working well for them until now.
“We are joyful and merry ang Christmas seeing the customers happy and also ‘pag bumabalik sila na may dalang kaibigan…that is very satisfying na hindi mo mabibili ng kahit ano yung feeling na ay bumalik sya, nagdala siya ng family at customers so that is very fulfilling at ramdam mo talaga ang diwa ng Pasko pag merong puto bumbong at bibingka,” Kay said with a smile.
Supreme Ice Cream Shoppe is located at 1295 Jefferson Ave. For orders, you can call (204) 633-3771.
Photo by Ron Cantiveros
