The heady aroma of fried chicken and waffles perfumes the midmorning air of the Blossom Market Hall in San Gabriel. At 10 a.m., most of the other vendors are still dark, but behind the counter at Baking With Ish, Ishnoelle Richardson and his husband Jeff have been at their new stall in the market for hours, preparing waffle and pancake batters and dozens of pieces of fried chicken.
“I just really needed people to try my fried chicken,” says Ishnoelle, who first opened his bakery at the market in 2023. He’s known best for his pandemic pop-up turned bricks-and-mortar bakery, with a pastry case full of ube-infused pies and pandesals brimming with more ube and melted cheese. But after moving from his 110-square-foot space in the market to a larger, adjacent stall in April, he’s using the extra square footage to serve breakfast.
“I went to school for savory, so I’m not just baking sweets,” he says. “I love fried chicken, and I’ve been making it since I was a kid. I might as well share it.”
Born in the Philippines, Ishnoelle spent his childhood at the hips of his aunt and grandmother in the kitchen. He moved to the United States as a teenager and pursued a career in entertainment, but he always longed to reconnect with the years he spent cooking alongside his family. After attending Le Cordon Bleu and various stints at L.A. restaurants, he mined the familiar flavors of the Philippines (and his mother’s recipes) to launch his own bakery during the pandemic.
He’s still filling his pastry case with ube doughnuts, cookies, cakes, buns, custard pies and pandesals, but now he’s serving sweet and savory breakfast, with chicken and waffles, egg and cheese pandesal sandwiches, pancakes and fried chicken sandwiches.
“I’m very picky with waffles because I love them,” says Ishnoelle. “The Max and Helen’s one is so good. Mine needed to be really good.”
He makes his batter with Sonora wheat from the Tehachapi Heritage Grain Project and seasons it with cardamom and cinnamon. They emerge from the iron perfectly golden, with each ridge well-defined, delicate and crisp. The waffles are soft and tender in the center with a rich, nutty, almost buttery flavor. They are good enough to devour on their own, but even better with a smear of the cinnamon and cardamom honey butter. And even more decadent crowned with two fried chicken thighs.
Ishnoelle’s aunt taught him how to make fried chicken in the Philippines, seasoned simply with salt, black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and a little MSG. The trick, he says, is to take the time to massage the seasoning into the chicken.
“After I massage it, I only let it sit and marinate for like 30 minutes,” he says.
Then he dredges the chicken in seasoned flour and fries it. The feathery coating shatters and the chicken beneath drips with juice, tasting like it’s been brined and marinated for hours.
He uses the same chicken for the fried chicken sandwich, only he adds a bit of dried chile de árbol to the seasoning and drenches the chicken in a calamansi honey butter. The chicken thigh is stacked on one of Ishnoelle’s brioche buns with Mornay sauce, garlic and chile oil, pickled onions and a handful of potato chips made from Weiser Family Farms potatoes. It is unlike any other fried chicken sandwich in the city. And it’s meant to be eaten as is.
“Some people will ask if I can take out the potato, but I want you to eat it how I imagined it and how I serve it,” says Ishnoelle. “My grandma told me to eat whatever is on the table. So I have that mentality, unless it’s an allergy.”
His pancakes are dark with wavy edges, and they taste the way you imagine a pancake should: warm, plush and a little spongy. Ishnoelle blends blue corn from the Tehachapi Heritage Grain Project with Koda Farms rice flour and poolish (yeast, water and pastry flour) to achieve the distinct violet hue and a slight chew. Instead of syrup, Ishnoelle blends ube flan into a thick topping he ladles over the pancakes. The deep purple sauce is pudding-like and sweet with a pronounced vanilla flavor. A sprinkle of Maldon salt over the top helps balance out the sweetness.
If you’re in the mood for a breakfast sandwich, you’ll need to time your visit wisely. While the rest of the menu is available throughout the day, he’s only making breakfast sandwiches until 11 a.m., or until he runs out. The sandwich starts with a split pandesal roll smeared with both Mornay sauce and a garlic sauce sharpened with yuzu sourced from a tree at an uncle’s home. Then he adds a sunny side up egg and a slab of Spam fried on the flat top.
For now, breakfast is just the beginning. Once Ishnoelle and Jeff hire a few more people, the pair said they plan on expanding the shop’s sandwich offerings and making their own longanisa. And though Ishnoelle says “every day is Pride day,” he plans to offer a rainbow cake on Father’s Day to celebrate Pride Month in June.
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