Phil-Am Food Mart is a beloved Filipino grocery store that has been proudly serving the greater NYC Filipino community and Pinoy food fans since 1976. This small but well-stocked store offers a wide range of Filipino food staples, ingredients, delicious snacks, pastries, and ready-to-heat or ready-to-eat dishes, making it a one-stop shop for all your Filipino culinary needs. Whether you're cooking a feast for the whole pamilya or just looking for a tasty merienda, Phil-Am Food Mart has you covered. Customers praise the store's extensive selection, cleanliness, and the authentic "home phill experience" it provides. While the small, sometimes crowded space can be a challenge, the store's dedication to offering the finest Filipino products and its continued service to the community make it a true gem in the NYC food scene.
Any Filipino parent worth their fish sauce will point you to Phil-Am Mart, where lines form on the weekends of people stocking up on pantry items that reflect the Philippines long history of colonization: canned Spam and Vienna sausages, Lady's Choice mayonnaise and tuna spread, instant noodles and soup mixes. The frozen section hides imported and hard-to-find kakanins - from suman sa ibus (suman steamed in palm leaves) to tupig (a grilled rice cake). Head to the back to find their array of homemade kakanins sitting aside their house-cured sausages and other meats. They have kutsinta, pitsi-pitsi, and sapin-sapin, which all use different ingredients but have the same smooth chewiness of mochi. Kutsinta uses rice flour and brown sugar while pitsi-pitsi has cassava as its main ingredient. Our favorite though is the sapin-sapin, which has an eye-catching tri-color of layered glutinous rice. Also, make sure to add a few rolls of the tableas de cacao hidden behind the cashiers to your basket for making thick Filipino hot chocolate at home before you head out.
