Auntie Em's Fine Foods & Pastries — Restaurant in South San Francisco

Well it turns out that Aunt Em is indeed friendly.

Bring cash. It's 4 stars because over all we only enjoyed 2 out of 12 items. We but keep reading to see our favorites and must try.

We went on a Sunday afternoon and everything was in stock, fresh and available.

We bought one of EVERYTHING because we hadn't had any of these pastries before.

Most of them are a repeat of the same ingredients used in a different way. Butter, Sugar, Coconut in most of it. Everything was sweet, not overly sweet but even the savory items we slightly sweetened.

The four of us tried everything right away.

Here is what would consider we ordering again:

Cheese Rolls⭐️ $2 ea Cheesy bread roll sweet, super flaky like baked fila dough coated with a sugar butter glaze. We could have order a couple of dozen.

Ube Ensaymada $4 Brioche bread buttery rich filled with ube extract and topped with cheese. The other flavored Ensaymadas were dolce de leche and cheese in the center, sweet, salted granulated cheese on top. In our opinion those flavors we not the business. The texture is good but not the flavor combo.

And maybe these:

Chicken Empanadas $4 Beef Empanadas $4 These have peas, carrots and potatoes with meat. These were decent. We tried these a million different ways so our palette for these is advanced.

Buko pie $5 Young coconut custard pie You gotta love coconut to like this because it is literally a pot pie with tons sugary shedded coconut and chunks of coconut meat on the inside. Not really custardy at all. This was good but we won't get it again.

The Chicharrones $8, deep fried pig skin, feet, ears. Who really ever knows, but 2 of us liked those. The other 2 of us couldn't get past the smell. Stinkier than any pork rind/ anything that I have ever smelled.

We really don't have any experience with Filipino pastries so we couldn't really compare it to much. I have a feeling someone with a little more experience would really enjoy a lot of these. From what I have researched these are authentic style pastries. And would likely satisfy the tastebuds of someone looking for familiar flavors from their childhood...

I've been going here off and on for a few years now.   I remember when they first opened and thinking the cheese bread was the hidden gem.  It was during the time when Portos was the thing and people would bring them back by the boxes to share.  I thought us having something similar and close to home was a treat. I recently came here on Easter to buy some desserts for the family.  The place hasn't changed.    It's a small area to pick and choose the items you want.   It looks like they have hired help now. Desserts I got this visit:

Bibinkga kakanin-  the latik on top looked so tasty.  $15 for a mini container was steep but it was gone in a heartbeat.  It was messy and ma kunat.  Tagalog at times just explains it better iykyk.  I could've polished one container off on my own.

Mango graham dessert - The lady didn't do a good job explaining this but I remember watching someone on YouTube make this.   It was good but the mango looked past its prime some didn't look edible.  I just picked those off and it wasn't bad.  It was the only one left that's why I ended up getting it.

Cheese ensaymada & ube ensaymada - For $4.50 and the size of it,  it's a bit pricy.   It's smaller than Goldilocks but it is delicious. Its my occasional treat so why not.

This place is a little pricy but worth it for the occasional treat for yourself.  They have a lot of good delicacies to...

So when Auntie Em's first opened I went to check it out. The products are definitely REALLY, REALLY GOOD, but the owner was not. I told all my friends about this place because it's really word of mouth in the Pilipino community, but they experienced the SAME "attitude" and so we all kinda stopped going but recently my best friend went and told me that the owner was super nice when she went so I decided to check it out again and I have to say that Auntie Em has redeemed herself and she was really nice and quick to help with what I wanted, so I have to put up a great post and recommend that everyone check this place out because everything she makes is really, really delicious, fresh, unique. I went twice in one week because her bibingka is GREAT and so are her chicken empanadas and ensymada, but man, she makes the BEST cheese rolls ever, even better than Portos. I will start frequenting this place again because I prefer to support independent...