In May 2018, I joined a program called “Creative Entrepreneurship For Newcomers” provided by Artscape Toronto. I learned so much about myself as a creative professional and have now started to think differently about how I could work within (and across) various food and community spaces in the city.
Read MoreOn May 11, 2018, I joined a roundtable dialogue with a dozen other emerging Filipino-Canadian writers to meet with Virgilio Almario, a distinguished writer and prolific poet, and Joey Ayala, whose folk music influenced generations of artists in the Philippines.
Read MoreWhen my family moved to Canada in 2007, I was a college student eager to absorb anything and everything related to food. I often talk about how, funnily, it feels like I “grew up” in Toronto, both as a person and a bit of a gastronome. You could say I spent my 20s eating my way through the city!
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Earlier this year, I co-led a food tour of three Filipino restaurants in Toronto and talked about the owners' migration stories, how Filipinos have woven their way into Canadian society, and the history of foods they served while (importantly) eating and drinking things that in the simplest way, made me very proud of my food culture. What more could I ask for? It’s been hard to get my head around this myself, but after taking time to review what we talked about - I realize that it personally meant a lot because these kinds of conversations around food were ones that I've been longing to have, both with Filipinos (who share a similar point of cultural reference) and with non-Filipinos who, over time, have "become Filipino" in more ways than one.
At each stop of our food tour, we asked our hosts - three groups of Filipino-Canadian restaurateurs - about why they started their business, why they've focused on featuring food and drink from the Philippines, examples of everyday challenges to running their business and of course, about what we were about to eat.
Tara, kain na! (Come and let's eat!)
Dishing Up Toronto is a series of food tours and tastings organized by the Ward Museum in collaboration with the Culinaria Research Centre, the hub for food studies at the University of Toronto. The program aims to create space for Torontonians to tell their stories of migration using food as a vehicle for storytelling.
For last year's pilot project, the Kapisanan Philippine Centre for Arts and Culture brought my co-host Joyce Voegler on to lead the "Balikbayan Renaissance" food tour. Other Dishing Up Toronto guides brought guests to join in an intimate feast celebrating the end of Ramadan; a walking tour of Toronto's Chinatown; and a cooking workshop held in one of the city's best-kept historic manors.
What absolutely hooked me onto this program was the fact that it put the principles of culinary tourism I've been reading a lot about into action. Seeing as I also recently completed a certification course with the World Food Travel Association, I couldn't wait to apply what I learned!
Located at a busy corner of Queen Street West, Lamesa Filipino Kitchen is easily the city's most recognized Filipino food spot, consistently voted into "best of" restaurant lists by local blogs and magazines. As the main stop for last year's food tour, owner Les Sabilano and executive chef Daniel Cancino instantly got on board - with a new venue (and equally compelling story) in mind for their sister spot, LASA by Lamesa, a fast casual restaurant that serves classic Filipino dishes made to order.
Topics discussed: On adapting Filipino recipes in Canada, barriers to mainstream success (among both non-Filipinos and within our own community), finding your place in the city
While I can’t really list down everything we talked about (though wish I could!) here are some things we talked about:
We asked Les and Chef Dan:
On the menu: Kare-kare
We brought Filipino recipe books that covered traditional takes of kare-kare (i.e. cooked in a clay pot called palayok), its status as "special" food (that most families would not make at home but go out to restaurants for) and modern-day variations (i.e. LASA’s kare-kare, a 48-hour sous-vide recipe).
Instagram-obsessed Filipino-Canadians know Tito Ron's for their desserts - which admittedly look so damn good and make you want to eat them through your phone. Learning about how this sweet shop came to be makes you even prouder to be part of their story!
Tristen Petate and Michael McFarlane started Tito Ron's in the summer of 2015, after a whirlwind season of pop-ups at food festivals across the city. While their original idea centred on savoury snacks, their signature ube turon sundae and other vibrantly hued desserts became so popular that Tito Ron's eventually became known as the Toronto spot for "remixed Filipino desserts".
From a tiny stall in Kensington Market to a residency at Death in Venice Gelato and Wong's Ice Cream, Tristen and Michael have their thumb on what customers want - those customers largely being second-generation Filipinos who loved the Philippine sweets (exported to Canada) that they grew up eating, and now craved those fruity, milky tastes of their childhood in freshly baked cookies and handmade pies.
Topics discussed: Being driven by passion and fearlessness, success from truly connecting with (and listening to) your audience, how Filipinos today are very much woven into the colourful fabric of society in Toronto
We talked about:
We asked Tristen and Michael:
On the menu: frozen dessert bars (mango tapioca, maja blanca, ube macapuno), signature ube polvoron pie
I'm a sucker for bars. Our third stop was at Dolly's Mojito Bar, featuring a neon red sign that flashes "Filipino Fare" like a beacon of warmth on a wintry night as you exit the subway. Though it's on one of Toronto's busiest roads, this section of Bloor St. feels like you're in a friend's neighbourhood: people hang out in front of shops, get their bike fixed, pick up groceries, buy lottery cards. But it's also quickly gentrifying; next door there's a record store, a vegan cafe, a tattoo shop, and restaurants and bars serving Caribbean, Italian, Indian and Filipino food.
In 2011, owner Dave Sidhu spent everything he had on the concept for his first restaurant, Playa Cabana - a spot with an impressive tequila list, delicious tacos, and a bar you couldn't resist. Six years later, he's opened just as many successful restaurants. In a city with a scene like Toronto's, that definitely says something.
Topics discussed: Filipino drinking culture, the sheer variety bar snacks called pulutan, Filipino food "making it" in a highly competitive industry
We talked about:
We asked Gabe Baron, the head bartender at Dolly's:
On the menu: Pancit, lumpia, adobo flake and lechon kawali tacos, longganisa and tocino sliders, San Miguel Beer
I look forward to more food tours! 😀
From October 1-4, 2017, the "Hidden Flavors Of The Philippine Kitchen" food tour took place in Toronto. It was the third stop of a five-city North American tour by Amy Besa and Chef Romy Dorotan of Purple Yam Restaurant, in partnership with the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs.
Why was it significant to be involved with these events? Because, simply put - it felt amazing to be part of something bigger: a community of Filipino-Americans and Canadians, (re)discovering food traditions and learning about foods from the Philippines.
That we got ingredients I myself had never tasted while growing up in the Philippines was revelatory. It came with intense excitement - that we would taste these vinegars and heirloom grains, these sweet and savoury preserves with an incredible depth of flavour, that people in the Philippines have used for generations in their cooking. Sampling native spirits, coffee, chocolate, honey, nuts that many Filipinos, even in their homeland, may not know of or get to taste for a variety of reasons - beyond amazing!
As a proud Filipino-Canadian, it was undoubtedly an enriching experience that I will forever be thankful to Amy and Chef Romy for. And the best part of all is that my experiences are by no means singular - not by a long shot.
After the events wound down, I chatted with other people who helped bring the “Hidden Flavors of the Philippine Kitchen” food tour to life in Seattle, Philadelphia, Chicago, New York and Toronto. In a sense, it felt like we were kind of bound together by this search for what makes us who we are today - as migrants to North America, as Filipinos in heart and soul. Exploring our hyphenated identities - knowing we are where we are today because of what our families have done and gone through - is a similar story in many ways to how these nearly-forgotten ingredients from the Philippines are now finding themselves back in the hands of people telling today’s story of Filipino food across the globe.
The history of adlai grains (a type of millet), tapuy (rice wine), danggit (dried fish), macapuno (coconut sport) and palapa (a toasted spice mix) - among so many - are those waiting to be told.
Even simply knowing Tita Amy is quite a big deal. I first reached out to her in 2016 to send a short blog post I wrote about their book “Memories of Philippine Kitchens”. To my delight, she responded! Soon after she shared their plans for embarking on this culinary tour of five North American cities, to bring little-known (and hardly served) ingredients and food products to chefs and restaurant goers in the US and Canada. That this kind of a food tour - very much the makings of a documentary - was about to happen, thrilled me to no end.
In Toronto, Amy connected me with Socky Pitargue and Maripi Leynes. Altogether we spent several months reaching out to Filipino-Canadian chefs, restaurateurs, food producers and industry/media supporters. Our goal was to bring these movers and shakers of the local food scene together, to spark conversation on the challenges and opportunities of bringing "hidden Filipino flavours" into the mainstream.
We sampled things like:
We invited not just people in the food industry, but also those who could help raise awareness of Amy and Romy’s advocacy toward preserving these largely underused, undervalued and fast disappearing ingredients.
We hoped that by bringing these food products to the table, literally, in Canada - our guests would leave with tangible memories of what those foods really tasted like and how they might incorporate those flavours into their restaurant and pop-up dinner menus.
Together with two chefs from their Purple Yam Restaurant in Manila, Amy and Chef Romy next held a culinary demo/public forum on bringing these hidden flavours of Philippine cuisine further to light.
Guests sampled their Sous-Vide Beef Shortrib Adobo, prepared with a native Philippine vinegar and local Canadian beef sourced from nearby St. Lawrence Market, along with a savoury pilaf using adlai grains.
We tried a dish called Kulawo, made with charred eggplant and burnt coconut cream. Very rich and tasty! I loved learning about this distinctly Southern Tagalog technique of first burning coconut meat until it literally turns black, then squeezing it to extract coconut cream. Though I was born and raised in that part of the Philippines, I’d never had this particular regional specialty. Their sous-chef, Raphael Cristobal, explained that in their restaurant kitchen they “burn” the coconut cream by broiling grated coconut meat in a 400 degree oven, then finish off by torching the browned, crisped coconut even further. Ang sarap. There’s an irreplaceable sweetness to burnt coconut that you just can’t get any other way.
Finally, we sampled Chef Romy’s famous Mangosteen Ice Cream. What a pleasant end to the tasting!
I looked forward to the following night pretty much the entire year. That dinner was quite extraordinary!
We had Cabcab, a Visayan specialty made of mashed cassavas dried into thin wafers, generously topped with the Kulawo we sampled the night before. There was homemade bagoong on the side - briny, funky and delicious.
And Bicol Express - oh my - which I kept helping myself to heaping spoonfuls of. It was rightly spiced (read: not overtly bursting with chilies) and so full of linamnam (a Tagalog word that closely translates to umami).
Next was Oyster Kinilaw, from Malpeque Bay on Prince Edward Island. Chef Romy sealed his take on transforming oysters from Canada’s east cost into a dish with distinctly Filipino flavours, using a "bath" of watermelon ice, citrus and sorrel, elegantly served and topped with slivers of bright red radishes. It's the perfect example of how conversations around how "authentic" or traditional a particular dish is, sometimes isn't even necessary - particularly when the flavours work so beautifully, and you begin with the best ingredients available.
The first main course was a plate of the Shortrib Beef Adobo - just as delectable as yesterday, this time with a full serving to myself!
It came with a side of adlai grains and vegetable pinakbet.
There was Banana Leaf Wrapped Fogo Island Cod, a perfectly cooked, incredibly aromatic catch, sourced from the equally beautiful yet stark island of Fogo, along the mystical shores of Newfoundland and Labrador. How you could taste their pristine waters, and perhaps dreamily, even the quietness of that landscape in a bite…delighted me to no end. Unwrapping the charred banana leaves let out a smoky whiff of air, spiked with coconut cream and a subtle hint of coffee. Was I now in the tropics? That delicate cod, studded with Canadian high bush cranberries, oyster mushrooms and leeks, was easily my favourite dish of the evening.
Finally, we had the Pili Maple Syrup Tart - a dessert crafted by Chef Romy and his team specially for this dinner, served no place else before. As some of you may know, I really have a thing for chocolate - seeing cacao trees and tasting Philippine chocolate while standing on the land they grow in really transforms you! Tigre Y Oliva’s 80% Dark Chocolate paired so wonderfully with maple syrup. Topped with ice cream made from unadulterated, pure macapuno that even Chef Romy finds difficult to source in the Philippines, it’s a dessert to fly across the world for.
It’s the kind of thing to savour and wish you could instantly have more of, but also maybe not, because there’s something innately gratifying about how special this is - and how this kind of marriage between a Canadian and Filipino flavours just works.
For more photos from our "Storytellers of Filipino Food" event, find us on Facebook or visit Cambio Market's blog here!
