MANILA
\nThe hospitality of Filipinos is well recognized across the Middle East, which millions of them have over decades called home, but their rich cuisine remains largely unknown. A celebrity chef is now trying to change it.
\nSome 700,000 Filipinos are employed in the UAE, more than half of them in Dubai. Their large presence has given birth to outlets offering the homesick, mostly working-class diaspora a taste of home with kamayan feasts \u2014 eating with hands \u2014 at places with nostalgic names such as Kusina ni Nanay, or Mother\u2019s Kitchen. Few of these places, however, will see guests other than Filipinos themselves.
\nWhen Filipino chef JP Anglo and his wife Camille opened their restaurant in the posh Marina Promenade, it was different from the usual establishments that dotted residential neighborhoods.
\n\u201cDubai is a melting pot of cultures. It is progressive and modern while still having room to grow. We were so surprised that there were so many Filipinos in Dubai and not many Filipino restaurants that offered purely Filipino food,\u201d Anglo told Arab News.
\nThe name of his Kooya Filipino Eatery also has a nostalgic vibe, with kooya being a wordplay on kuya \u2014 the Filipino term for older brother \u2014 but its menu tries to elevate the flavors of standard homestyle and street food to build on the diverse culinary traditions of dozens of ethnic groups found throughout the Philippine archipelago.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re here to show the people that Filipino food is more than just carinderias (roadside eateries), fast food and the stigma that Fear Factor has created,\u201d Anglo said, referring to the US reality show that two decades ago introduced to a worldwide audience the Filipino delicacy balut \u2014 duck egg with a developing embryo \u2014 as one of the most disgusting and terrifying snacks.
\nA graduate of Le Cordon Bleu and a former Philippine Masterchef judge, Anglo enjoys rock star status at home and is a fixture on the Philippine culinary scene with his popular Sarsa restaurant in Makati.
\nBut when Kooya opened in 2022, it received mixed feedback from Filipinos who thought its fare was too expensive.
\n\u201c(It) frustrates me why a lot of us tend to look down on our food so much. It\u2019s like Filipino food should only be cheap while it\u2019s okay for Italian, American and Japanese food to be expensive,\u201d Anglo said, but added that on the other end of the spectrum were those who \u201cwould always tell us: \u2018Finally, there\u2019s a restaurant where we can proudly tell others that this is what Filipino food is\u2019.\u201d
\nOne of them was Lora Gregorio, a restaurant manager in Dubai, who told Arab News that she had tried Kooya because she was curious what it could offer to the city\u2019s dining scene.
\nAn upscale place, Kooya gave her a \u201cmodern reinterpretation of Filipino culture\u201d which still aptly represented Filipino identity.
\n\u201cThe place shows a lot of what the Filipino is. It\u2019s welcoming and homey, you can come as you are, you are greeted by hospitable people, and it allows us to connect with others through food,\u201d she said.
\nTo Fosca Garcia, an entrepreneur and another Kooya diner, the establishment \u201crepresents the global Filipino \u2014 edgy and modern, but with traditional roots.\u201d
\nAnglo estimates that about 70 percent of Kooya\u2019s diners are Filipinos, but he hopes to diversify his customer base soon, as the restaurant\u2019s foray coincides with a reckoning of Filipino cuisine worldwide, that, for decades, was kept to diasporic homes in favor of assimilation with their host countries.
\nWith second-generation Filipino immigrants in countries like the US winning culinary awards, Anglo believes this is the start of the Philippine cuisine gaining mainstream recognition worldwide.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s definitely our time to shine, I think. There are so many Filipinos who\u2019ve migrated to other countries with better opportunities and so this opens doors for Filipino chefs to flex their cuisine,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cHopefully, in the future, people all over the world will know what a palabok (Filipino rice noodle dish) is just as they would know what a pad thai, spaghetti and pho are.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MANILA The hospitality of Filipinos is well recognized across the Middle East, which millions of them have over decades called home, but their rich cuisine remains largely unknown. A celebrity chef is now trying to change it. Some 700,000 Filipinos are employed in the UAE, more than half of them in Dubai. Their large presence […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387849,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-387830","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n