Filipino Restaurant Month celebrates cuisine and culture in local community

April marks the second annual Filipino Restaurant Month in Canada. The initiative promotes Filipino chefs, restaurants and ingredients in our communities. And with the growing population in Waterloo Region, it's a cuisine that is catching on with food lovers of all backgrounds.

Organized by the Philippine Consulate General (PCG) in Calgary (along with other consulates) and the Philippine Embassy in Ottawa, the month features participating Filipino restaurants offering special menus and dishes.

According to the PCG, there are 957,000 Filipinos living in Canada. A 2016 Statistics Canada Census places Tagalog, the language of many Filipinos, as the ninth most common mother-tongue language of recent immigrants in Waterloo Region. (Arabic was the number one mother tongue of recent immigrants to the Region.)

"A fusion of other food cultures"

When it comes to food operations in the area, there are both well-established Filipino businesses and several that have opened only in the last few years. It's a testament to the growth of this specific food culture.

J & P Filipino Grocery Store opened in April 2010. Co-owner Pinky Campbell oversees the store as well as a hot table that serves dishes such as lumpia, chicken and pork adobo, pancit and menudo.

Campbell says that during her time on Madison Avenue in Kitchener, a brisk "underground" culinary activity had been going on in the community with Filipino cooks preparing food for other Filipinos. But in the last several years, the cuisine and the restaurants have become more open and mainstream.

"Our customers are not only Filipinos. There are now different cultures that like our food and that's a good feeling," says Campbell.

While Nuestro 88 in Kitchener and Kusina Sugbo in Waterloo struggled during the pandemic and were forced to shut down, Kitchener's Sari-Sari Filipino Cuisine pivoted to a takeout and delivery operational mode and immediately thrived.

Official participants in Filipino Restaurant Month, Sari-Sari is a family-run business on Lancaster Street West: they're offering a special "sharing tray" (available April 8 - 23) that will include barbecue pork sticks, lumpia, barbecue pork belly and rice.

Speaking on behalf of the family, Ylynne Rosales Enriquez says the community has embraced Sari-Sari's cooking.

"Filipino food is a fusion of other food cultures. You get sweet, tangy, savoury and spicy at times. It's a mixture of the flavour of different cultures that have been here and has evolved over time. It's also very homey food, a comfort food and street food – pagkain sa kalye – as well," Rosales Enriquez says.

The food at Sari-Sari is most closely identified with the family's home city in Philippines, Balanga in the province of Bataan.

"A lot of our menu is what our parents grew up eating," she adds. "We are happy to be able to represent our culture and Waterloo Region during Filipino Restaurant Month."  

Rosel de Guzman operates Rosel's Flavours for Life, which started as a takeout-only kitchen in Kitchener in August 2019. Rosel officially opened as a full-service restaurant near Wilfrid Laurier University, and de Guzman says the community support has been "amazing."

"We keep getting new customers and have many regulars who bring more friends," says de Guzman. "We are loving how the community has embraced our Filipino food."

In honour of Filipino Restaurant Month, Rosel's is offering a traditional kamayan, or "boodle fight," sharing platter for dine-in or takeout.

Also in Waterloo, working out of a commissary kitchen, Katrina Tioco is part of Gayuma Catering, the Filipino word referring to "love charm" or "anything that attracts."

Connie Laoyan has owned and operated Lovely Pao, in Guelph since 2020, with its hot table and small seating area, grocery store and large production kitchen that supplies over 50 retailers in the GTA. They also have outlets in Toronto and Brampton.

Among their flagship products is siaopao, a delicious and popular steam bun snack that is stuffed with a variety of ingredients, including seasoned asado chicken or pork and hard-boiled egg.

According to U.S. government estimates, among 110.8 million Filipinos, 80% of the population is Roman Catholic and 9% identify as belonging to other Christian groups.

With Easter upon us, some of these Filipino businesses may be closed – best to check with the individual restaurants.

Sari-Sari will be open April 8-9 to help people celebrate the holiday with family and friends "similar to other cultures," says Rosales Enriquez.

She adds that Filipino Restaurant Month and the way the community's many cultures have connected over Filipino food is important to Sari-Sari, as it is with other Filipino businesses as their profiles grow.

"Our family sees the interest in Filipino food as a movement that we are really excited about. We believe in representation."