Gemmae Bake Shop

If I didn’t include a bakery in my list of the best Filipino places to eat in Los Angeles, I suspect I’d lose my “Filipino by marriage” license. Gemmae Bake Shop is simply one of the best—so good that I am under strict “pain of death” instructions not to touch both the Nutella and ube pandesal (Nutella and purple yam bread, respectively) we brought back from there. Fortunately, there are plenty of other less pain-threatening items on the menu, such as the hopia mongo (puff pastry filled with sweetened mung beans) and the classic bibingka (baked sweet rice cake).