Pansang’s Filipino Cuisine

So I came from living around paradise hills area where the filipino restaurant «titas» is the shiiiizzz! I was craving FF but was skeptical with this place since nothing gets better than titas (in my opinion). However, here was my experience. I come in and its small, i had two toddlers with me so being lucky it wasnt packed my kids were all over the place and were easy to catch. They have all the side area that sells snacks. Good marketing cuz they had all the candy and toys on the bottom shelf for the kids to grab. Their food looked as if they were there for a while but not so bad since thats what you should expect at a Filipino kitchenette. I get to the counter and was happy cuz I didnt need «cash only» I hate how most filipino places are like that. But low and behold it was taking forever and connection was bad. So the cashier pointed me to Vons where they had an ATM. Such a pain with two kids walking over there and back. Get back and the cashier is STILL helping the lady that was behind me when I left. I swear she was taking her sweet time putting her items in the bag and organizing it. At that point i was sooooo irritated cuz my kids were all over the place grabbing every chip /​snack in site. She was ok as far as friendliness goes. I get home, expecting the worst dried pancit but it was actually amazingly good! Another test was the sisig as those are also a hit or miss… Omggg it was sooo goood! Bottom line, their food was sooo good! I just really hated my wait and other inconveniences. But this is not a sit down restaurant (but u can eat there) so I will give the stars for its food.

The heat lamps don’t Work My food was room temp so i just ate a little then threw it away in fear of food poisoning. Also the lumpia was old and limp.

This place never has too long of a wait. Every time I come here the staff is always great and they have good customer service. They do get a little busy sometimes but they try their hardest to work fast and get the line moving. Everything here is really good but my go-​to items are sisig and the menudo. They always give huge servings and pack the tray up with food. I like how they give you some soup too. The sinigang is super good, nice and sour! The prices here are not bad for the amount of food you are getting!

What horrible customer service!!! Just because you don’t look Filipino this cashier woman doesn’t give 2 shits about whether you’ve patiently been waiting in line while she caters and gives her best service to her «Kababayan» or «comadre» or «ate.» There’s no «let’s think to get the other 30 people in the back to help this lady out to take her order» or «let’s tell her I will just be a moment and I’ll be right with her.» No. Never again. You just lost one of your Filipino customers. This secret shopper will not come to you for business. Probably better off anyway, all your food was floating in heart attack/​diabetes/​stroke juice. Zero stars is that is even an option!

I agree with other reviewers. The food quality appears to have deteriorated since the name change from Lisa’s to Pansak’s Café. The new owner is not as friendly either and was defensive and arrogant when questioned about her food offerings.

Shitty Food. DO NOT COME HERE!!! They re-​heat left over food and re sell it. The Lumpia Sauce is all Water. It’s not sweet at all. it’s supposed to be seet and sour sauce, Not Water Sauce. Yuck… Nasty!!!

My first time to this place as recommended by a co-​worker. I was very impressed. I grew up on Filipino food as child and really enjoyed the food. I ordered a 2 choice of sisig and malabon. With a side of Kare Kare and rice with 2 drinks. Cost me less than $ 13. You can’t beat the price and the amount of food they gave was enough to feed 3 people. The sisig and Kare Kare were delicious. Will definitely be coming back here.

I loved this spot as Lisa’s and Pansang’s. They are always generous with their portions, the prices are good and the food is delicious. They are always on time when I place pick up orders and are always very friendly.

I have very mixed opinions of Filipino restaurants where the food is served counter-​style. I greatly appreciate the simplicity of my order (a 2 or 3 item combo with white rice) as all I have to do is point to the entrée that looks good at the time. The main disadvantage of these types of restaurants is that whatever is served can vary tremendously from day to day and from one restaurant to another. It also doesn’t help that my tastes in Filipino food are very Americanized; I am much more likely to not eat anything served that day just because I don’t like what’s offered — too many whole fish dishes (I *hate* picking out fish bones), too much veggie/​seafood dishes soaked with bagoong or the presence of one too many flies surrounding the dish in question. This isn’t just true of this establishment, it’s true of almost ALL Filipino counter-​style restaurants.
Whenever my dad brings in Filipino food he’ll try his best to accommodate my picky tastes, but even then I’ll usually pick from eating 1 – 3 dishes at the most. At worst the only good option is just pancit and at that point I usually drive somewhere and get food for myself. The best case option I can make a meal and use the rest as leftovers, but this is rare. The only dishes I’ll eat counter-​style are pancit, barbecue on a skewer, lechon kawali, kare-​kare, bistek, a non-​fish sinigang and sisig.
This used to be Lisa’s from my recollection but the only difference is the name change. For counter serve it is one of the cleaner counters I’ve seen with very few flies and limited but CLEAN tables. This is already a big step from JNC Pinoy, where I question the cleanliness every time I go there.
As for the service knowing absolutely NO Tagalog I can get by with just pointing to the dish in question but usually when the person behind the counter knows I don’t speak the language they’ll switch to English.
— Reminiscent of Chinese counter-​style, you can do a half rice/​half pancit.
— Rice is towards the sticky side but rarely they serve dry rice. In that case I find leftover rice and eat that instead.
— Pancit is VERY noodle heavy and very stingy on the meat served.
As for the entrees:
— Sisig: I can count on sisig being served whenever my dad brings home food. For the most part there is a good combination of fat to meat with adequate spices, but I’ve seen barely edible renditions where there is too much fat to meat. A good sisig also has a crunchy skin, a noticeable amount of onions and is somewhat tart. Luckily of all the times I’ve eaten this from this place the dish is consistently served well.
— Kare-​kare: One of my favorite Filipino dishes when served well, which means there has to be a decent proportion of meat. This doesn’t occur most of the time, instead there are filler ingredients of eggplant, leafy greens and cartilage. If it’s very skimpy on the meats I won’t eat it.
— Sinigang: The pork meat is at this point quite soft. There’s a good ratio of meat/​veggies (leafy greens) to soup and one way to make the rice less dry or less soft is to just let the rice absorb the soup. Half of the time there’s a decent amount of meat but there are at least a couple occasions where there’s little meat.
— Bistek: I can count on this dish being meat heavy as essentially said dish is all beef. The dish is like a tartier adobo because of the calamansi and as I’m an onion gal, the more onions the dish has the more delicious it is.
— Lechon kawali: It’s good when there’s more meat to fat and the skin is crunchy, but most of the time the skin is soggy and there’s just simply too much fat. Usually I’ll end up skipping on this dish because of the soggy skin and fat.
— Barbecue on skewer: Sometimes my dad takes pity on me because all his other dishes are ones I won’t eat and he’ll throw me a bone in the form of a barbecue on a stick. If I eat this with pancit and rice this is usually sufficient. This isn’t Manila Sunset quality but edible.
— Turon: This place serves the turon consistently well with a good portion of banana to fried wrapper and said wrapper skin is crunchy. It’s best to eat this with a napkin because it’ll make your hands sticky.
Overall this place serves good Filipino food for my picky palate on a good day but if the dishes aren’t up to par I won’t hesitate getting to-​go food elsewhere.

Delicious Filipino food, serve some traditional breakfast, lunch and dinner! Very convenient location and provide handful portion that will make you feel very satisfied. Excellent staff… stop by and say to Hi to Marc! Highly recommended!

Best filipino foods in chula vista!
The lumpia, beef steak and sisig are great! You guys should try it.

I go here almost everyday for brunch try the lumpia, dilis, kare-​kare sisig and toron love this place 5 star

I wanted to try this place but I don’t think I would any more. I called to ask what dishes they had for the day (assuming it was cafeteria style). The lady was like «this is a filipino restaurant» and insisted I called the wrong number. She didn’t sound too friendly. She had me feeling dumb. This was the closest Filipino eatery to my house but I guess I’ll make the drive else where.

This bitch charged me more than they display!!! 2 items plus tilapia $ 8.50, crook!!! Don’t eat here!

I rarely come here. When I do, it is usually to buy finger foods like fried bananas on a stick, turon (sweet banana wrapped in lumpia wrapper, coated in brown sugar and deep fried), and some snacks as «pasalubong» for my mum.
Needless to say, I’m in and out in a minute or two. Last week, I decided to have lunch there for the first time. The dining section is claustrophobic. There are 3 tables for 4 and 1 table for 2. I ordered lumpia’ng shanghai and what I think was mechado or some meat in dark brown thick sauce. Both the lumpia and the meat dish tasted the same! Meaning.bland. I was very disappointed. I did not finish my meal.
Had to use the restroom after to wash hands before I left. The restroom was the worse I’ve seen in any Filipino restaurant I’ve visited. In addition to it being filthy, the sink was clogged. The faucet chrome finish has cracked, chipped and what was left was covered in green build up. It appeared that the restroom was left uncleaned from the day they moved in. It was so disgusting.
I can’t imagine how they keep their kitchen clean.

We had been buying from this fast food place for the last 2 years and the food was pretty good. The dishes were hot and fresh from the kitchen, the serving sizes were more than expected, and the taste was genuinely Filipino. We would order party trays from them on a regular basis, like their breaded calamari, special pancit, sisig, and turon.
However in the past few weeks, it’s been a different kind of restaurant, like they changed their head cook, because the taste is not the same. The fried fish tasted like it was fried in old cooking oil, the pancit noodles were almost soggy, the veggies over cooked and have lost their color. There is a distinctly fishy taste in almost all the dishes, which could be due to a change of type of fish sauce or seasoning, or just having too much of it on every dish!?! Disappointing, really. I’m tempted to search for the restaurant where their old cook has gone.
1 star for this one, I’m afraid. If the owner ever reads this review, he or she shoul get the original cook back in the kitchen.