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Today I want to talk about the first Filipino vegan bakery in LA, but most importantly, in California.
Kym Estrada is the founder of San & Wolves Bakeshop. Besides going to one of her pop-ups, I also got the chance to pick her brain about her background, her thriving business and her life in LA.
Here’s an excerpt from her website to introduce her business:
San & Wolves Bakeshop is a pop-up biz making vegan Filipino baked goods. I specialize in traditional sweet breads, nontraditional pastries, and my top secret ube halaya recipe. All products are free of soy, nuts and palm oil. Everything is made from scratch, right down to the coconut oil-based butter. I’m most proud of how much this business has introduced Filipino flavors to people. Also proud that I get to offer fellow Filipinx vegans something nostalgic that they haven’t had since childhood.
It’s fascinating how she used her love of baking to cope with the everyday humdrum of her life and eventually turned into a successful business that helps educate people about Filipino culture. I first heard about San & Wolves thanks to Philip, who runs the gallery Ends of the Earth inside the Wolf’s Brew Coffee shop, my favorite coffee shop in Long Beach!
Located in Long Beach, California, San & Wolves doesn’t have a brick-and-mortar, but thanks to the community and word-of-mouth, she has gathered an impressive, dedicated fan base. A prime example of this is how Kym sells out within MINUTES of posting her preorder menu on her Instagram page and website. I could see this for myself when all the variety boxes were sold out 20 minutes after she announced the pre-order menu on a Sunday.
To order, you have to wait until either Saturday or Sunday, depending on the week and Kym’s schedule, when she posts the preorder menu on Instagram and on the website. If, for whatever reason you don’t have Instagram, don’t fret!! You can order on her website just as easily.
Once you place your order, the pickup is on the following weekend in the Long Beach area.
I didn’t believe the hype until I saw two of San & Wolves’s Instagram stories with crazy long lines of people at the pop-ups. My jaw dropped to the floor. When Kym does pop-ups, it’s first come first serve. No preorders. Just looking at the line on the IG stories, you would think there was an autograph signing or some kind of big release. This just goes to show the outpouring of love and support from the community.
Before Kym created San & Wolves in 2016 in Brooklyn, where she lived at the time, she worked at a digital agency in NYC.
Kym shared with VoyageLA:
“I liked it, but didn’t love it. It just wasn’t for me (I’m not the most social person). The day to day functions of interacting with people sucked a lot of the energy from me. I saw myself become a more timid, anxious person. It wasn’t healthy. Baking became a cathartic process for me when I’d come home from work.”
From her favorite restaurants in LA, to the inspiration behind the name, here are the answers Kym e-mailed me.
You moved to Long Beach from Brooklyn. May I ask, why Long Beach specifically? What attracted you to Long Beach vs other neighborhoods in LA?
I’m originally from the SGV (San Gabriel Valley) and moved around the LA area a few times before moving to Brooklyn. My life partner grew up in Long Beach though. We were just looking at places that we could afford when we moved back to Cali to be quite honest and I really wanted to move back to my old spot in Silver Lake, but prices were insane. My partner really loves Long Beach and he made the case to move here. The only time I spent in Long Beach as a kid was when my parents had to stock up on Filipino food when they didn’t want to cook. Anyway, my partner found a spot that’s close to a lot of parks and by the beach and I just ended up loving it. Long Beach kinda has everything. There are a lot of things I hate about LA and Long Beach has less of it. I guess I’ll leave that up to you to decide what that is. But if you live in Long Beach, I think you kinda understand what I mean. The morning breeze/fog is beautiful and such a pleasant thing to walk to when I walk to my car to go to work in the mornings too.
For someone who’s never tried your pastries before, what’s the experience you want to convey when people eat them?
For the Filipinx community, I want them to feel nostalgic when they eat my food. I want my food to be a portal to their childhood. That’s why I started San & Wolves. For them. A lot of my customers will tell me they haven’t had Filipino pastries since they went vegan or stopped eating dairy, and I’m just happy to provide them with food that’s equal to the food they grew up eating. For first-time customers who’ve never had Filipino flavors like ube, calamansi, cassava, pandan, etc, I just want them to experience something outside of their usual desserts (cupcakes, croissants, muffins, cookies, etc). There are so many different types of pastries from other cultures that are widely slept on in American culture.
Why did you decide to go with that name? What’s the meaning behind it?
When I named the business “San & Wolves Bakeshop”, it was kind of a quick decision because I didn’t know it would become anything. I just had 3 recipes, signed up for a pop-up in BK (Brooklyn) and was like “well, I guess I gotta name it.” So I’ve stuck with that name ever since. There’s this movie called Princess Mononoke; it’s a Studio Ghibli film by Hayao Miyazaki. It’s one of my favorite movies. The whole movie is about Princess Mononoke (San), who is raised by wolves (hence San & Wolves), learning how to coexist with humans and understanding how humans, animals and nature need to learn how to coexist in order to survive. There are a lot of interesting characters in the movie, but I’ve always related to San the most. And now that I’m older, I have a deeper appreciation and understanding for all the other characters too. If you haven’t watched it, just please watch it!
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In mid-August, I was eager for Saturday to come so that I could place my order, but Kym shared on her IG that she would not be doing pre-orders that weekend due to jury duty. But she didn’t leave us high and dry and on August 21st, she did a pop-up at the Salud Juice coffee shop in Long Beach.
Fast-forward to that Saturday. I woke up super early to drive from West Hollywood to Long Beach. I got there 10 minutes before 10 am and the line was halfway down the block.
After two hours of waiting in line and some light drizzle, I finally got to the counter and placed my order: 50/50 Ube Cookie, Ube Cheez Pandesal, Ube Coffee Cake, Chocolate Ube Macapuno Cake.
Once your order is ready, they will call your name and give you the order sheet alongside the box.
I got my order and went straight to my car to get out of my way of the crowd. To my surprise, when I opened the box I realized there had been a mistake. I was given two Ube Coffee Cakes instead of one Ube Coffee Cake and one Chocolate Ube Macapuno Cake, as marked on my order sheet. By the time I realized this, I was already on my way back to West Hollywood. I was pretty disappointed I didn’t get to try the chocolate ube cake, but here’s a picture:
Regardless, the other pastries I got were absolutely delicious.
The 50/50 Cookie had a lovely texture and the taste wasn’t sugary or anything like that. It was light and very soft to the palate. I loved the subtle juxtaposition of the ube and the regular brown sugar cookie. It was a 10/10.
The Ube Cheez Pandesal was soft and fluffy. It was almost like biting into a pillow. The purple yam on the inside was so vibrant and exceptionally rich in flavor. Every bite was heavenly. I was really looking forward to trying the Ube Cheez Pandesal with cheese, but it was already sold out!
The Ube Coffee Cake was my favorite pastry out of all of them. The inside was moist with an incredibly tender and richly flavored crumb. I could taste the ube flavor, the vanilla cake from the other half, and the subtle hints of coffee. Overall, it was a very unique and memorable combination. The lady behind me, who was carrying a San & Wolves’ tote bag, said it was her favorite item. After eating it, I understood why she was so eager to get her hands on it.
It probably would have been even better if I had waited until the next morning to enjoy the second piece with a freshly brewed cup of coffee, but it was so delicious I ended up eating both pieces that day.
My total for those pastries was $21. I do think it was fairly priced. You have to take into account that all the products are soy, nut, and palm oil free, and the prices are on par with other all-vegan bakeries you will find in LA, like Just What I Kneaded, which I love. Even though LA has a unique plethora of vegan restaurants, bakeries in LA that are 100% vegan aren’t as common as people think they are.
Since Filipino pastries heavily rely on flour and butter as their base, I read that it’s very hard to come across places like San & Wolves. For the preparation of the pastries, Kym uses organic sweeteners, fair trade chocolate and housemade coconut-oil based butter. I don’t mind paying a few extra dollars for ethically sourced products with sustainable ingredients and judging by the popularity of the pastries, neither does anyone else.
Philip, the owner of Ends of Earth gallery in Long Beach said: “She’s one of a kind and she’s the only one doing it out here (vegan filipino desserts) in California. Another place would be Hood Famous Bakeshop in Seattle.”
San & Wolves, besides being a women-operated business, educates people on Filipino culture through delectable and innovative pastries. The house-made ube halaya jam, aka the purple ingredient, is featured in all of the items, which makes eating them even more fun!
Of course I had to ask Kym about her favorite restaurants in LA and whether or not she plans on bringing San and Wolves to the LA area.
What are your favorite restaurants in LA?
Fuck, there’s so much. Night + Market Song in Silver Lake, Original Thai BBQ (any locations tbh, but I grew up going to the Glendale location), Saladang in Pasadena, Sanamluang in Hollywood and Claremont… (can you tell I love Thai food). My Vegan Gold in Silver Lake, Sage, Morning Nights in Long Beach, Wild Chive in Long Beach, Sura in Long Beach, Magpies for dessert for sure, Soy Good in Garden Grove for boba. I could go on man.
Are you planning on doing pop-ups in the LA area anytime soon?
Not any time soon. Prior to the pandemic, I was doing pop-ups up and down LA. Since then, I changed up my business model and I try to keep it local. I’m a one-woman business so I try to put most of my energy into my food rather than gas mileage. I’m also very fortunate and lucky to have customers coming to Long Beach from all over to purchase my pastries.
Note: Note that since the menu changes on a weekly basis, there might be an item from the variety box that may not be to your liking, so just go with an open mind. Cash is also accepted at her pop-ups, but just make sure you bring the exact amount.
What is the main difference between living in Brooklyn and living in Long Beach? What was your experience in NY like? Did you like the fast-paced atmosphere? Would you move back?
The overall lifestyle I guess. In NY everything and everyone around you is moving fast paced, and the public transportation forces you into this fast-paced world, there’s just no way to escape it. And I just found NY to be more inspiring. You see so much more because you’re not confined to your car. You’re in the subway, walking for miles to run errands, etc. Those daily human interactions with strangers just give your life more color. In Long Beach/LA things are much slower and the pace of your life kind of more depends on you and the people you physically interact with daily. Since most people are in their cars to get places, you’re just in your own world.
NY also gives you a better sense of independency; it’s super liberating living out there. I contemplate moving back because I just love NY so much, but it gets lonely. All my friends and family live out in the LA area so it’s nice to have that support group.
Out of all your pastries, is there one in particular that holds special meaning to you?
My pan de coco. It’s the first Filipino recipe I veganized. Also bitsu-bitsu, it was my favorite thing to eat growing up.
San & Wolves also offers custom cakes! To place an order, just go to the website and click on “cake” in the dropdown menu.
Overall, going to a San & Wolves pop-up was definitely an experience. She won’t be doing a pop-up in LA anytime soon but that’s ok. Although I’m pretty sure she already has plenty of loyal customers that live in LA and are willing to drive to Long Beach. At the pop-up, the lady behind me drove up from Orange County.
If you’re the type of person that gets antsy waiting in line, then the preorder pickup menu is the way to go. Stay tuned for her future pop-ups and menus on her Instagram and website. Don’t forget to set your alarm!
