Adobo Burnt Ends, Kare Kare Surf and Turf and Filipino-Tiki Cocktails: Filipino Food Week Is Now
More than 20 restaurants across the state are participating in Filipino Food Week from June 6 to 12.
Chef Chai’s crispy golden tilapia with spicy garlic patis and lime dipping sauce. Photo: Courtesy of Filipino Food Week
More and more chefs are celebrating Filipino food across the country—except in Hawai‘i. Modern Filipino restaurants are popping up from San Francisco to New York, LA to DC, and yet, in Hawai‘i, where Filipinos are the non-white majority, there are still only a handful of Filipino eateries, mostly mom-and-pop operations confined to certain neighborhoods.
The Philippine Consulate General in Honolulu wants to change that. Enter Filipino Food Week, now in its third year. It kicked off yesterday and culminates on June 12, Independence Day in the Philippines, marking its independence from Spain in 1898.
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This year’s food week features more than 20 restaurants highlighting Filipino-inspired dishes and drinks. Chef Chai offers a full feast of pork belly lechon roulade with mung bean risotto and a take on sinigang, with prawns in a broth soured with calamansi, along with other dishes and desserts (halo halo, of course) to round it out. Pai Honolulu will offer a kare kare peanut stew with beef and fermented shrimp. And Danny Mabalot Jr. of Dickey’s Barbecue Pit combines American barbecue with his Filipino heritage through adobo smoked wings and adobo pork belly burnt ends.
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For Filipino-meets-tiki cocktails, head to Skull & Crown. But if you’re looking to celebrate at home, pick up a bottle of Kasama Rum at Tamura’s. The rum debuted earlier this year and proved so popular it was sold out in Hawai‘i for the past month. But shelves has since been restocked—the distributor put in an order for 160 cases, “the biggest spirit purchase their distributor has ever seen for Hawai‘i,” says Kasama’s PR company.
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Find the full list of participating restaurants and dishes, from Tiki’s Grill & Bar to MW Restaurant here. filipinofoodweekhawaii.com, @filipinofoodweekhawaii
