Those dishes actually sound very good! I guess I am biased because I live right by a Filipino restaurant and the food is terrible.
Ah, that explains it. There are around a dozen Filipino restaurants in my city and only one is any good in my opinion.
My advice is get a Filipina friend and ask her to cook some famous dishes. Alternatively, use the internet to get some recipes. For some sweets, try ginataan (hard to explain - it has some purple yam in it, jackfruit and gelatin balls), halo-halo (shaved ice, with sugar, ice cream, evaporated milk, sweet banana, jackfruit, nata de coco), leche flan (flan with sweet syrup), turon (deep fried sweet banana in a wrap), buko salad (shredded young coconut and fruit cocktail in sweetened syrup and cream).
Geez, all this talk of food has made me hungry ...