one filipino dish a week

As summer takes a bow, we all hope for an encore and we all are wondering where did the summer go? Summer went by so fast that I feel like I haven’t done everything to fully enjoy it. For some reason the last remaining gasps of summer is making me nostalgic about street food. How I wish to get a whiff of the amazing smell from the BBQ stands of Cebu. Or get a taste of that special sauce of the shrimp tempura cart. Be it New York City, Beijing or Cebu City street food is a must try. But seriously, what’s in that sauce that everyone dips the tempura cart?

Eat Filipino Food!

Excitement abounds! There is no way I was going to let this quest of finding more about Filipino food without going to the Philippines. So tomorrow I will be headed back to the motherland and devour my way through her bounty

Stay tuned for posts (probably very intermittent) but in the meantime… Eat Filipino Food!

Welcome to One Filipino Dish A Week V1.2! haha… I was starting to get tired of the dreary looking webpage. It just didn’t make you feel like you want to cook or eat. This makes it a little bit more open and a little more lively. I also decided to make a new home for the blog… so change your bookmarks it’s now onefilipinodish.com. More food posts coming really soon.

Eat Filipino Food!

As week 6 rolls along here, I’ve really been thinking about authenticity of Filipino cuisine outside of the Philippines. In a previous post, I talked about popularity of Filipino food outside the Filipino community. I have been navigating through the websites for different reviews and comments on the thin lineup of Filipino restaurants in the NYC area and one common theme of comments that I noticed is authenticity. This really got me thinking and question how authentic can ethnic cuisine be outside of its native land?

What makes the final product authentic anyway? Is it the process? Is it the ingredients? I suppose it’s a combination of both. The process is something that can be learned, passed on, and shared. Filipino food isn’t that hard to make. It’s not fancy schmancy French food that has to be done extremely specific. Hmm… What happens if French techniques are applied to Filipino cooking? Well, that’s going to be shot down in a second by the authentic patrol. But I digress. The ingredients is most likely the biggest culprit in this authenticity crime because it’s what gives the food that umph! It gives it the taste of the place where it belongs like terroir in wine. It’s like using tapioca pearls instead of landang for the binignit. It had the familiarity of that rainy afternoon of my childhood but it just wasn’t the real deal. It’s hard to find all the ingredients that make authentic Filipino food here in the east coast of the US. Most of the time we’re forced to substitute with what’s good enough or go for the frozen variety. Is that then the reason why the restaurants can’t re-create authentic Filipino food, ingredients? Or are we, Filipinos, simply too proud of our own province’s version of the dish that we simply can’t recommend the restaurant’s version to non-Filipinos?

I don’t think I’ll find any answers any time soon so as these next weeks come through I’m definitely going to try to keep it as authentic as possible. Whatever that means.

Why is Filipino cuisine very underrated and unknown to non-Filipinos? Especially here in the east coast in the US not too may people know about Filipino food. I know it’s anecdotal but, the most common responses I’ve noticed range from the completely unfamiliar, “What is Filipino food like?”, to the uncertain, “This Filipino friend of mine brought me to their house and we ate something like…”, to the vaguely familiar, “One of my buddies is Filipino and his mom would make lumpia”. That’s it? I don’t understand and I’m quite perturbed of by this.

Is it that Filipinos are apprehensive to share because they think that non-Filipinos would not like the food? Are we ashamed to share? Do we think that Filipino food is not “high class” and not worthy to be served to other non-Filipinos? Is it that there aren’t great restaurateurs and chefs outside the Philippines?

There are lots of great restaurants in the Philippines but here in the NYC area there’s practically none. At least none that I would highly recommend to non-Filipinos who are willing to try Filipino cuisine. None that has a menu that’s friendly to non-Filipinos who are not familiar with the food. The majority of the places here are cafeteria-style (turo-turo), styro to-go platters and plastic utensils. Why is that? I’m not saying that it has to be a fine dining place but just some real plates. There are lots of Cuban and Mexican places that are great places that aren’t expensive yet you still get to sit down and don’t have to point at your food.

Maybe I’m just being idealistic but I don’t think I’m asking for a lot. All I want is to have Filipino food become a choice in the restaurant going public. “So what do you want to eat tonight Chinese, Thai, Mexican, Italian, or Filipino?” or “What’s a good place around here? There’s this good Filipino place a couple blocks away.” Is that too much to ask? Let me know your thoughts.