Inside the Las Vegas Filipino Pop-Up Bakery Slinging Ube-Swirled Babka and Pandan Tres Leches | Eater Vegas

"Born from recipes learned in her multigenerational home, Kimberly Mcintosh’s small Las Vegas pop-up bakery blends Filipino heritage and playful reimaginings of traditional sweets: she sells small batches of creative items such as a toasted-milk financier made with house-made ube jam and toasted milk powder, fried coconut mochi fritters (karioka) glazed with coconut milk, latik and finished with flaky Ilocano Asin sea salt from Xroads, an ube babka that evolved from pan de ube with ube halaya and crushed Filipino cookies, a pandan tres leche that highlights pandan’s nutty vanilla note, and a pan de coco–inspired sticky bun baked with a coconut jam toffee glaze and cashews. Mcintosh frames the baking as both a personal connection to grandparents who spoke Tagalog and a conversation about colonization’s culinary influences (using ingredients like instant milk and rethinking Spanish/Mexican-Filipino links), encourages customers at pop-ups to ask questions about the food, chose the name “Milkfish” to invite conversation and resonate with Filipino customers, and has grown from a 2022 pop-up at the Vegas Test Kitchen into a regular vendor that earned a James Beard semifinalist nod for Outstanding Pastry Chef or Baker." - Janna Karel