The goal of Filipino Restaurant Month is to celebrate Filipino food and to introduce more Canadians to the cuisine. We at Yes! We're Eating Again! are excited about this as fully half of the staff here are Filipina! There are 7 restaurants participating in the Metro Vancouver area and we have been to many of them but not relative newcomer Lyra Lou Cakes. It has been on our list since it opened and this seemed like the time to pay a visit!
The focus here is definitely on the bakery business and their options as far as cakes and baked goods is pretty impressive. We got a couple of things to go for later. 
Well, we arrived too early for the food month specials as LLC is only participating from the 24th of the month. Still, it turns out that prices are pretty impressive here and the food month specials will not make that much difference to our bottom line! We decided to try the Chicken Sisig. This is a pretty creative idea as Sisig is traditionally made with pork including pork ears and as much as I love it, I worry about my arteries. Chicken just seems like a healthier option and the dish still had the sisig taste with onion, mayo, soy, ginger, garlic etc. It came with steamed rice and a fried egg and was an inexpensive meal for only $12!
Filipinos (including my wife) are fond of their breakfasts called "silogs". She ordered Tocilog which features Tocino which is a sweet cured sausage usually made with pork belly. Silogs are traditionally served with garlic rice and a fried egg for a hearty start to your day. This one was quite good but with steamed rice and garlic chips rather than actual garlic rice.
We decided to try their Corned Beef Pandesal which was an inspired move. I told them they are not charging enough for this as at $7 for 2 buns with corned beef, cheese, mayo and garlic chips, this is a steal! Excellent ube buns are brought in from an outside baker but they also sell the buns by the dozen at a reasonable price. These sandwiches were a real treat!
Finally, we had Mango Con Yelo for dessert. Again, at only $7, this was quite reasonable and full of fresh mango! The scoop of vanilla ice cream that topped it off was drizzled with a mango - passion fruit coulis that was perfect. The ice felt like it was crushed rather than shaved which made it a little too chunky but other than that, this was a great dessert!
We got a selection of macarons to take home. 6 for $12 seems reasonable. We're not like huge macaron fans but we have paid quite a bit more in Vancouver. These were very nicely put together and would probably make you macaron people happy.
Turon is a little more of a traditional Filipino dessert, often made with spring roll wrappers and bananas. At LLC they have upped the game a bit and call these Turon Puffs. The pastry is a little puffier than the traditional wrapper and the fillings vary from jack fruit to Nutella and so on. They were very pleasant and not too filling. We enjoyed them a great deal!
They have a very nicely decorated dining room but not a huge amount of space. There are 3 tables and a few counter seats. Since the focus is on the bakery, most of their business is take-out so the small space isn't an issue. Even our meals were served in take-out containers which is fine. The folks that we met were very welcoming and table service was decent. If you're new to Filipino food, this is a good place to start!
Food 4 out of5
Comfort 4 out of 5
Service 4 out of 5
Value 4 1/2 out of 5
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