The Cuisine of the Filipino American Community

Learn about the Filipino American community, its cuisine and culture.

Female: With food as rich as their heritage, Filipino cuisine is a cacophony of flavor combining tastes from both eastern and western influences all mixed together with uniquely Filipino twist. Mario: My name is Mario Albenlo. I’m the owner of the Tito Rad’s Restaurant. Well, I opened last 2006 because of my passion of cooking, I want to open my own restaurant with real ethnicity cooking. When you go to the restaurant, you have to think about Filipino dishes comes to your mind first is Adobo. Female: One very famous dish is the adobo. It’s either made of either chicken or pork or beef. Mario: This is adobo. Sometimes, you can cook it chicken or pork. Female: Most of the people who tastes, who tries the adobo really love it and would ask for more. Mario: This is like a national dish from people who lives in north region. It’s a mix of oriental vegetables like egg plant, okra, beans, squash and sautéed in a shrimp paste. Female: Everytime we have this thing at school were we have to bring food from our country and one time I brought this egg roll and they loved it and they’re like, “How do you make it?” I was like, “My grandparents made it, my grandparents are great cooks.” Female: And we love to feed people whatever they like and when you think about Filipino cuisine, we always think about the egg rolls, most famous. Female: I think a lot of people from different cultures and nationalities, they like it, they love it. Mario: Usually when we’re having like a holiday, a birthday party, people in their house loves to cook this one. It’s a stew, beef stew, ox tail’s stew cooks in the peanut butter sauce. Female: We also have that what you call Kare-Kare, you know, it’s ox tail with peanut butter sauce, that’s very famous also. You should try that. Mario: Right here is the Nahumba, this is the favorite dish in the central region. Also, cooked in soy sauce, slow cooking, soy sauce and vinegar and some herbs, local herbs. Female: If there’s one or two Filipinos, there’s always Filipino food. Female: When there’s a fiesta, this fiesta is what we derived from the Spaniards. When there’s a fiesta in one town, the whole people, the whole community is going to really come. When you hear fiesta, you will hear the chickens crying because we roast a lot. Mario: Halina kayo sa Tito Rad at kumain at magsaya! Come to Tito Rad’s and let’s eat and enjoy ourselves.