THIS year is the first year that Vancouver, Canada opened its eyes to the beloved Filipino dessert of halo-halo. This all-time summer dessert loved by us takes centerstage as several Filipino establishments have joined the first-ever Halo-Halo Festival. This festival is spearheaded by Berb Technologies, maker of an innovative phone app called Berbapp that is part social media platform that highlights video posts of food reviews by influencers and foodies of restaurants, and food businesses.
Berbapp teamed up with various Filipino-owned businesses for this 30-day event, which is happening from Saturday, July 16 to Monday, August 15. Participating restaurants include Plato Filipino, Sago to Go, Pampanga’s Cuisine, Mabuhay Supermarket, Kabayan Fiesta, Win Win Chick-n, Mr. Siopao de Langley, Grandt Kitchen and Kaon ‘Ta. Visit all these locations to try various halo-halo-inspired desserts! Apart from selling the traditional halo-halo, each establishment was encouraged to come up with different variations of the halo-halo to open the eyes of Filipinos and Canadians alike to the wonderful world of this Filipino dessert and all its possibilities.
The traditional halo-halo is packed full of ingredients of varying textures and flavors, from ube ice cream to fresh jackfruit, to the kaong or sweet palm fruit, and to the nata de coco or coconut jelly, or even macapuno or coconut strings, all of which are layered under a bed of shaved ice — well, that is before you mix them all up. The word halo-halo in Tagalog, in fact, literally translates to "mix-mix" in English. The dessert is meant to be mixed before the first bite. Each spoonful is different from the last, which makes eating halo-halo an experience like no other.
I got to try the dessert offerings of Win Win Chicken, a Filipino chicken joint that has a cult following in Vancouver. The business, spearheaded by two siblings and their spouses, put up Win Win Chicken in the year 2018 in Steveseton, Richmond.In the year of 2020 one month before Covid hit, they opened their second branch in South Vancouver in 2020. Despite what could be the worst year to open, Win Win Chicken-Vancouver branch is doing well and for the Halo-Halo Festival has come up with unique offerings like the ube halo-halo cake, which has Win Win Chicken's signature ube cake topped with halo-halo goodness. They have also come up with their halo-halo ice cream to fit as the perfect ending to a meal of their delicious chicken and Filipino-style macaroni complete with hotdog and sweet tomato sauce.
Their ube cake mainstay such as the uber-yummy leche flan ube cake with a delectable leche flan in the middle is available even during Halo-Halo Festival. With this summer heat at 35 degrees, and for Canada standards, 30 to 35 degrees with days which feel like 40 degrees is uncommon. That is considered extremely hot for this city so the owners of Win Win also made three new ice cream flavors to add to the summer line up – Strawberry chili, Mango Chili and Jackfruit ice cream. Head to any of the two Win Win chicken branches to know the unique taste these desserts bring.