Nastasha: Welcome to Exploring Filipino Kitchens. I'm your host, Nastasha Alli.
Today, I am thankful there is a growing and amazing list of diasporic cookbooks about food from the Philippines and one book in particular called I Am a Filipino, and this is How We Cook to me, is undisputedly a classic, like one of the ones you should have in any collection. To me, cookbooks are a very personal thing, you know, it's like they capture these different worlds inside them that are filled with stories of just the tastes and the smells and this like sensory overload almost of different cuisines from across the lands we live in. And I'm not gonna lie, it's why most of my living room is filled with, you know, books on my shelves of different cuisines from across the world. I love getting to dive into different stories and histories and cultures through it. And naturally Filipino cookbooks have a solid place on that shelf.
Nicole Ponseca is one of the authors of I am a Filipino, published in 2018 by Artisan Press. It's a hardbound cookbook, almost 400 pages, and comes with just this beautiful photography of these recipes that span the archipelago.
It's got stories about Nicole and her co-author, Miguel Trinidad when they traveled across the Philippines, learning about ingredients and different regional cuisines and how, these traditional recipes could be adapted for home kitchens.
And honestly, to me, this was just really the first book where I saw and held in my hands, you know, this manifestation of the fact that Filipino cuisine really deserved to be on those cookbook shelves at chapters. Um, it was, I guess this small, but like clearly strong memory for me of thinking we've made it.
And I've been so excited for this chat with Nicole. Today we're gonna talk about Filipino food in the US market and the legacy of her restaurants, Jeepney and Maharlika, which were in New York City. We're gonna talk about restaurants that serve, these cuisines that are inspired from places across the Philippines and we talk about hospitality a lot, and how taking care of the people around us is just really a core part of who we are.
So let's get to it.
About Nicole
Nicole: My name is Nicole Ponseca and I'm a restaurateur, an author and hospitality consultant, and I'm the founder of two groundbreaking Filipino restaurants named Jeepney and Maharlika in New York City that pushed the national conversation around Filipino food. Forward really. And I've spent the last, I think two decades, championing Filipino food making space for us, not just through dining experience, but through media education.
And my book, I am a Filipino, and my mission is to create pathways for Filipino hospitality to thrive globally, and I do that through storytelling, business strategy, and building communities that celebrate our culture with pride.
Nastasha: Obviously this is very much something that I am personally interested in, as a topic, as somebody who's also worked in the hospitality industry for a little over like 17, 18 years now since I came to Canada.
Nicole: Mm.
Nastasha: I’m obviously also a very big fan of your work, with the book and with the restaurants. I had the chance to visit Jeepney like way back when we were doing some next day better events in New York. So..
Nicole: Wow. Go way back.
Nastasha: Yeah, a bit of, bit of time's passed since. And, um, really that's one of the things I was looking forward to with this chance to chat with you is, to kind of help again put a little bit of that context into the conversation.
Obviously, you've been, in the scene for a long time and have worked with. You know, so many, people in the industry, and worked with a lot of chefs to kind of push the Filipino food conversation forward. So, I guess the first thing, and this might be, you know, really a broad question.
The restaurant landscape today
Nastasha: But I did wanna ask, since that time that your restaurants first opened in New York City, what do you feel has changed the most, in the landscape today? And we could maybe look at that from your perspective, one as a restauranteur, or as a hospitality consultant, and even, I guess more personally as, a Filipino American who's, you know, we're at 2025 now and the conversation on Filipino food has definitely changed over time.
Nicole: Yes, and yet we still have a long way to go. You know, a recent study, I think by McKinsey said that Filipino food makes only 0.9% of all. Of the restaurants, at least in the us. And if that's the US I can't imagine what's going on in Canada, other, countries. So, particularly if New York and California are great, destinations for Filipino food and you see it, but it's still, it's still burgeoning.
So we really do have quite a bit of work to do, but when I was, starting out, when I opened Maharlika and Jeepney, Filipino food was still on the fringe. For some of your listeners who might be younger or just not, you know, knowledgeable about Filipino foods trajectory, I mean, it really, started with my restaurants and that was, purposeful.
I can say that with a clear conscience and drive because that was our mission, was not only to make our food successful within the restaurant, but help open doors for others. And, what can I say?
I think the mission really was about representation and there are three strategies therein. There is legitimizing the cuisine for onlookers and non Filipinos.
Then there's also the legitimacy within our own Filipino community that is laden with colonialism, and western sensibility that again, for some listeners, might have zero idea that this exists or existed. And kudos to them that they're not the wiser, that they didn't have to.
Stereotypes and reclaimed narratives
Nicole: But I can imagine younger folk can exist in this world we live in now where they didn't have to feel the same kind of shame that, we may have had, and negative stereotypes. So that's what I mean about the second strategy is about legitimizing it within our own Filipino community. And then three is even just optimizing the careers in hospitality and in food, and in entrepreneurship.
All three of which weren't necessarily career paths that our parents had made available to us as even an idea. So that, and then I'd say the fourth strategy is just making sure that our cuisine and our concepts are competitive, not with each other. And that's where it got really, it was really hard for me in the beginning because it was a sense of competitiveness within our own communities and culture and, you know, Filipino diaspora because they hadn't seen anything like it. And then it instantly became, what is this, you know?
But to the people that got it, that they really were the ones that helped rise our restaurants, our food, and then ultimately spark what we now know as the Filipino food movement. Yeah. But just to go a little bit deeper about how I think the landscape has changed.
It's more open. There are more Filipino chefs, popups concepts than ever before. But what I think has changed even the most is consumer confidence and culinary curiosity.
Nastasha: Mm.
Nicole: And, Filipino Americans are reclaiming their narrative. And, you know, a lot of chefs, they're not just saying, here's adobo that you might have found, like at a carinderia which is delicious, but they're saying, this is adobo and this is my take on it, and this is why it's important, right?
So, there's more layers to it.
Nastasha: Mm-hmm. We're not on video, but I've been nodding my head this entire time and jotting down some notes. It's great to see that, we are at this place where, as you mentioned that kind of like the trifecta of that consumer confidence, the curiosity, both from the market as well as the chefs and the producers who are creating those culinary experiences are such a big driver, for that kind of diversity and experiences that we're seeing now.
And, I totally agree as somebody who loves to go out and eat and kind of experience, you know, these different ways that the cuisine is being interpreted, that reclamation of our narratives and, really kind of seeing that people in general are a lot more open to just that regionality of it, right?
Like it's not just that, you have, diasporic communities in the big cities, but now we're also seeing a lot more of those kind of different regions, in the US and in different parts of Canada as well. There is kind of that comfort level now because we've kind of reached that kind of threshold, I guess, where most people have some familiarity with Filipino cuisine, and again, this is really thanks to, you know, the trailblazers such as yourself who helped really pave the way, for this to happen.
Nicole: I think we have to be careful though that we're still, we are in a bubble. You and I, because we're Filipino and our algorithm and our social media says, oh, this restaurant opened in Chicago and this opened in New York City. But we're still talking to ourselves.
Nastasha: That's true.
How do we measure success?
Nicole: I really wanna be careful, you know, only because I'm working on other business projects and I'm really, conscious of what the data is. And the data doesn't suggest that we're at that apex yet. I think we're about five years away from it, truthfully.
Nastasha: Yeah.
Nicole: Because let's look at how we measure that success, or what are the KPIs or the key performance indicators that would suggest that Filipino food is at some sort of apex?
It's not. It's just winning on social media. Let's get really clear about that because if we think that we're farther than we are, then we are going to be missing some stages in how we, continue to introduce Filipino food and define it. Like, I like to compare this with other cuisines. I'll relegate it to the US like Mexican food, Italian food, Korean food, Thai food. And, Chinese food all have very specific tropes, journeys within the palates and bellies of our consumers. And it takes time. And Mexican cuisine, arguably 1960s, seventies, serving their, countrymen in the us certainly in Southern California and spreading, eastward and northern where we now see Mexican food as an option. Taco Tuesday, I mean, who doesn't know Taco Tuesday.
Nastasha: Mm-hmm.
Nicole: If we get to a place where you're telling me it's Tocino Tuesday, I'll cut some slack, but we're not there.
And then we look at Italian food, who doesn't have spaghetti and meatballs? What Italian restaurant opens up and asks themselves, Hey, you think there's enough Italians here that can support. No way. None of those, none of those cuisines ask themselves, let's do this again and, let's do it purposefully so that if we are intentionally growing our cuisine and our culture, we can look at these as footsteps to follow. It's Mexican food. Thai, Japanese, Korean, Italian, and Chinese. Started perhaps in the Gold Rush, and there's great stories about you'll find Chinese restaurants in Springfield, Missouri, you know, and like, it's just fascinating and let's not get ahead of ourselves to think that in 2012 I opened Jeepney. Yes, things move at a faster pace. We started Kamayan and now I see Kamayan everywhere pretty much. And that helped make it an exotic experience, underlined the work, exotic. But we, still have a lot of ways to go and I hope that, you know, there's some really wonderful chefs like Lordfer out in Orlando, who was my sous chef, my opening sous chef at Maharlika. And Tara in San Diego, I really love what they're doing.
It's focused on skill and talent and I haven't tried Lordfer's food, but I have tried Tara's and it can be backed up with flavor. So I just wanted to make sure that if you have an interested chef or a restaurateur, like it really requires super intentionality about how we build our menus.
Even the palate, like not dumbing it down. Young chefs who are doing Filipino food, the one thing I ask is, are you cooking this for yourself or are you cooking this for a client? And if you're cooking it for the client, how much have you changed the food thinking that it has to be a certain way for them? I don't often get an answer back, but I do get raised eyebrows asking themselves the same question.
Nastasha: Kind of seeing it start to, yeah, turn the wheels a little and…
Nicole: Adobo is not mild. It is awesome. It is, umami. It should be a flavor bomb. And once again, we look to those forebearers of international cuisine that has really crossed over and the ones that do it really well are the ones that really stick to a formula of this is how we eat it. Whether it's Italian and you're going to a Tuscan restaurant or a Roman, like, they'll tell you like, yeah, this is how we enjoy it. Now, why is that different for Filipino food? Why all of a sudden that elevating it with a garnish or a certain, perhaps technique
Nastasha: Presentation. Yeah.
Nicole: Presentation still good. I mean. But we eat with our eyes first. Sure. But, where does the line between elevating it for mainstream palates come in and putting your own spin on it?
As a chef, I think it's a very fine line and I think the ones that succeed are the ones that really know that balance. Yeah.
Nastasha: I wanted to take a second to go back to putting things into context and perspective, in terms of, you know, new menus that are being developed, how does it compare to, these other great cuisines that, we know have worked as you're saying. A train of thought that I wanted to explore with you a little is really kind of drawing on your experience, because obviously you've got a lot of that both from the restaurant operations side, as well as on the consulting.
And because you were such a key player especially at the beginning when a lot of these conversations around, what is the value of our cuisine even, in the kind of diasporic cuisines of the US. I guess I'm also gonna ask this from the perspective of building that hospitality part 'cause that to me is also something that I see as such a big, like, opportunity I guess and in every place I've worked at, there are always Filipino people. Right. There's no doubt a lot of the skillset that comes in comes very naturally, to work in hospitality. And, yeah. I guess looking at how we might push things forward more mindfully, more intentionally. And with that, sense of, putting Filipino food on the map outside of our little social bubbles, like what types of culinary experiences do you think might work in, the US today?
Going out for dinner
Nicole: I just think that, you know. There's this misconception that expensive is good, and there's this misconception that fancy is better than, like modest or humble. And I'd argue that let's take my experience with Korean food. Really dating till like 2005. I'm now reminiscing about meals that I would have with a boyfriend at the time. And, these were just really solid, good food, great value, consistent, and tasted like I was eating something that was distinctly Korean. With their sauces and their dishes.
And I can remember going to barbecues and also steam table type restaurants and just enjoying it. And that itself built, I'm sure many like me, loyal customers that, Hey, what do you wanna get for dinner tonight? Oh, let's go get Korean. Or what do you want for lunch? Let's get Korean and it becomes part of my cravings, you know, just as much as tacos or pad thai.
Nastasha: Mm-hmm.
Nicole: And that is not because I spent like 30 or $40 on an entree and I was able to sit fancy with a sommelier.
No, that takes time. The fact that Animae can do so well in San Diego and with Tara at the helm, and it's a beautiful dining room. It's truly gorgeous. It feels like I'm walking into something Great Gatsby.
Nastasha: Wow.
Nicole: She's been nominated for the second year in a row as a finalist for Best Chef. I don't know if it's for her region but it's a Best Chef category, right? It's, it's not cheap, but that's fine. But how come now I could probably look up Animae. They don't call it a Filipino restaurant.
Nastasha: Mm-hmm.
Nicole: Why don't the owners call it Filipino? You know, if this podcast gets to them, give that justice to her that she's been given a Best Chef nomination for two years in a row, I think it was a Korean steakhouse. She took it over during pandemic, and integrated Filipino food. And I, would bet money that the Filipino consumer of that restaurant spiked up knowing that we were serving beautiful food, from our culture there. So it was great. But on the whole, like, I can't spend that money week in and week out.
Places on rotation
Nicole: So where the real beauty comes from are these humble eateries that become pit stops at least once a week, maybe twice a week, heck, four times a month. That it becomes part of your rotation becomes normalized and those people tell other people, and then we get modern concepts and that's, typically how we've seen cuisines grow. I can't think of one that doesn't follow that model.
Nastasha: That kind of trajectory. I love that for a number of reasons, but what I'm taking away from that is it's great to have, this restaurant be, a very special occasion kind of place to go to, but to kind of see a more sustained long-term, you know, approach to further raising the profile of Filipino cuisine. I agree with you. It has to be something that you can afford to eat and experience with not just yourself, but like the kind of thing where it's not gonna break the bank if you wanna bring two friends with you who are trying Filipino food for the first time, or, you know, if you've got kids, just, obviously cost of living is…
Nicole: It's on all of our minds. Yeah.
Nastasha: Looking at these ways where these kinds of culinary experiences really tap into those different market segments and how it's marketed too, I find, sometimes the popup dinners and everything are obviously marketed towards a type of consumer who is down to pay 120, 150 bucks for a meal, but…
Nicole: Where is the every day? Where, you know, I don't know what it is in your part of the world, but in, New York, it's Queens.
Nastasha: Mm-hmm.
Nicole: And that's still driven by Filipino community. I think what made Jeepney and Maharlika part of the success was that was 12 years in the making of really understanding why Filipino food wasn't working. Why modern restaurants that had tried before us, it just wasn't doing it. So it was not overnight. It was really thoughtful and studied. And I worked my ass off in French and Italian restaurants not for anything else but to learn how they run so that we could be competitive with them, that we could be an option. The real estate mattered that we were located in a really cool neighborhood, known for food, and I'd love to see the growth of humble eateries that are accessible in metropolitan areas, not relegated to the fringe neighborhoods. And those are great, but they serve their own, you know? And following the growth of our food is more options and in different parts of a city. Right. Hope that makes sense.
Nastasha: It does.
Nicole: There's many layers. Yeah.
Nastasha: There's totally so many layers, I guess just to canadianize it a little bit. So if I think about the context in Toronto, we do have a number of more high-end places downtown that are not just Filipino focused, but certainly carry a lot of inspiration from Filipino cuisine. So for example, I'm thinking of Mineral, which is in the Yorkville neighborhood of Toronto. Very kind of posh neighborhood in general.
Nicole: It's a beautiful space.
Nastasha: It is a beautiful space too. Have you, been to Mineral?
Nicole: Yeah, yeah.
Nastasha: Wonderful. And so that, that experience is like, you know, it's a whole experience. It's an evening dinner with drinks kind of thing, and the cocktail menu is great, also with nods to Philippine ingredients and that kind of thing. But yeah, it's drawing those different markets, into parts of downtown. 'cause in the suburbs, right? There's like Filipino clusters in Toronto, it's in Scarborough, where we have lots of turo-turo to style places there. You talked earlier about, you know, concepts that are competitive, like thinking of Filipino cuisine concepts that are competitive, not with each other in a crab mentality context, but like competitive in the wider market.
Nicole: Yeah.
Nastasha: Korean cuisine and Japanese cuisine. Obviously those are also very top of mind for a lot of people. And if you're thinking about trying to attract. People at the end of the week who might be interested in, in trying either a new cuisine or just a different concept. Like, it would be really great if the ecosystem that we have supports enough entrepreneurs and chefs that there's enough of those options sprinkled around. So I guess my question for you would be in your mind, do you have a specific type of culinary experience that you would like to see more of?
Nicole: Not necessarily. But I would like to bring up the pad Thai diplomacy that came out of Thailand and how Thai food became popular. I don't wanna get too deep into it. I'm not a historian, but this was very strategic by the Thai government to provide a pathway for Thai food to become popular and therefore increase the tourism in Thailand, which did not have the reputation that it does today. And again, that was a strategic move, I think, by their royal government.
Nastasha: Yeah, with those chefs that, were trained specifically to kind of go abroad. Right.
Nicole: Well, to be specific to your question about experiences. They hired chefs to create three different concepts. One would be fast casual, one would be middle of the road, and one would be fancy. So that if you wanted to immigrate to America they would prop you up with a budget and you followed these pre scribed concepts, and what we saw was a flourish of the fast casual.
And in New York you could walk blocks and there would be Thai food after Thai food. And they were affordable. And they were consistent. Again, the word consistent such that you knew if you were gonna walk into one of these moderately priced Thai restaurants, that you were gonna pick one of four curries, green, red, yellow, and massaman, and you were gonna get one of three noodles, pad Thai, pad see ew and the like, one of two soups, Tom Yum. And, then, smattering of appetizers. Any of your listeners tell me I'm wrong. Spring roll, a fish cake, isan sausage, and maybe papaya salad. Now, how is it that every one of these restaurants in the late nineties to early two thousands had the same menu and they're not the same restaurateur? Very strategic, and so I would love to see that.
Four strategies
Nicole: Just things that are accessible, consistent, delicious, and scalable. And I could nerd out with you and tell you what I would wanna see in a fancy restaurant, but it's immaterial to me because it's gonna come from the soul of a chef and a restaurateur and a team, and that comes from their creative vibe.
But what I can tell you is in the Philippines, what I'd love to see is a focus on service. And I'd be very curious how many restaurants actually open their day-to-day service with the pre-service meetings that tells their staff what are their 86s, so that if you and I sit down and we order, we're not given the runaround for 45 minutes and told, oh ma'am, sir, sorry, we sold out of bistek. You didn't know that at the beginning of your shift? So how are you gonna have Michelin come in here? And, you know, again, they've widened their point of view of what can be judged for Michelin. That includes some things that are more casual as well, but there's gotta be some fundamentals here.
So I'm excited to see us continue to grow. What I wanna see is not just the stylized dining rooms in the Philippines, but a real focus on service. There are a handful. Yeah, there are a handful that have really understood service. And then in North America and beyond, it's just accessibility. That's all I wanna see right now is just more options so that they do the work of marketing. They are the ones that do the groundwork that you can't fast forward. None of these cuisines leapfrogged that attention to middle class dining.
Nastasha: Hmm. It's an interesting perspective. I like how that's phrased, no one's leapfrogged the middle class, the mid-range, concepts because it's such a core part of your business, of the income that you could get.
Nicole: Yeah, I think, let's build sustainable concepts that are affordable so that all of us can enjoy it and eat it and take our friends, not just four times a year, a birthday, a christening, graduation. Like we can be integrated into the American, again my perspective, the American palette.
Nastasha: I had actually written down, part of lifestyle here in my notes. I can't even remember what part of what we talked about earlier that applied to specifically. But, speaking from, where I am in Toronto. When I first moved here, the conversation was, not really existent.
At the time it was, again, more turo-turo spots, that were frequented by members of the community. And I love that you know I work in downtown Toronto and a lot of my coworkers who are not Filipino, do fairly regularly mention that they've gone to, this restaurant and tried this thing.
So I love that it's becoming a part of the lifestyle. Again in urban centers. And again, I'm aware that it’s in my bubble I do have quite a lot of foodie people around me. So there is kind of that lens to think about it through.
The last question, I guess that I just wanted to ask of everyone who comes on the show, is if you could tell us a little bit about an experience or memory around Filipino food that really stands out to you for some reason. I know that's a very broad question, but a personal anecdote usually tends to be at the core of this answer.
Nicole: So the question is, do I have a core memory of Filipino food?
Nastasha: Or experience.
A core memory
Nicole: Yeah, I have a few, but I'd like to maybe redirect this to a core memory of Filipino values and hospitality.
Nastasha: Absolutely.
Nicole: It's about my dad, who was so influential to me in being Filipino and ensuring that I don't forget where I came from. His English was to his judgment poor, and so he was very shy about speaking English and he wasn't a very talkative guy to begin with. But he was very loving and , the only thing that got him the most riled up with me, 'cause I was a mischievous kid from time to time, good natured, but very mischievous, was just, don't forget that you're Filipino. So this story is about that. And one day he picked me up from school and I was with like three girlfriends certainly white, I'm sure of it. Um, picked us up from school and like we got out of cheer, dance practice, you know, after school activity. And my dad was so happy, always so happy to see me. Like just walking to the car. I could already feel his delight knowing that we were together, you know? Uh, dad. Dad. Hi. How are you? Hi, dad. You know, um, can you take us to McDonald's? We really wanna go. We really, we wanna get Happy Meal. He said, of course, of course. So we say, yay, you know, we get to go to McDonald's, get our french fries. And for whatever reason, he didn't do the drive through at this time.
So he parked the car, and all my girlfriends and I, we walked in and we walked out happy campers with our happy meals, right? And so when I get in the car, I notice the energy changed. Pretty instantly. My father looked grim, maybe even lost the color. The beautiful color in his skin had gone pale and, not a mean energy, but definitely like a sadness.
And I kept my eye on him while I sat in the front seat in the corner of my eye. And I'm like 13. You know, young, but I was very aware. And my friends, we drop them off and we go home and my dad kind of enters the house quietly and it's not like a passive aggressiveness. I just could feel that there was something kind of…
Nastasha: Something weighing, yeah.
Nicole: Yeah, yeah. Weighing. And so my mother comes home and you know, your father wants to talk to you. I go, yeah, I know. I can tell something's wrong, you know? And I go to him and I said, you know, what's going on? You know? And then he said, well, today when we went to McDonald's. Uh, I became very sad, Nicole.
And I said, okay, yeah, I could, see. And I said, why? What's, what happened? And he said, when you came, when you left and when you came back to the car, you did not ask me, dad, what can I get for you? You didn't ask me if I'm hungry, and I don't want you to do that. I don't want you to forget to ask your family to ask the people around you, not just for yourself.
You ask them, are you hungry? What can I get for you? And we kind of teared, you know? He's like, please don't. Don't ever forget you are a Filipino. This is core to us. You don't just think about yourself. And that, and just the way he would talk to me and teach me lessons about what it means to be Filipino was so transformative to me.
Not to say that Americans aren't generous or that they don't care, but it was so, so much emphasis that that is what it means to be Filipino, that we don't just eat for ourselves. And I think that gave way to why I even got into hospitality was that I enjoy being Filipino. I enjoy these values and through food and through that kind of sensibility, we could build our identity here in America for others to view us and for us to share. So that's my Filipino food adjacent story.
Nastasha: The second you said that your dad had said it was because you didn't ask me if I wanted anything, I felt like a little heart tug.
Nicole: Mm-hmm.
Nastasha: You know, and it's like, it was real because I can absolutely imagine my own parents saying that, you know, it's, something that, is so central to, the culture.
Nicole: I can't even think about my dad coming home with a snack just for himself. Like that would be so absurd. Like if you went to get pandesal, of course he's buying two dozen.
Nastasha: You're not getting it just for yourself.
Nicole: Yeah. And then you give some for the neighbor, oh, Nikki, go bring this to Susan next door. Why
Nastasha: Yeah.
Nicole: Be quiet! Go ahead. Bring the bag of pandesals to them. Don't ask questions. Okay, so then you just become trained. You don't get it for yourself. And, then I just was so ashamed, you know what I mean?
Nastasha: I was gonna say, like I do have a kind of similar vein story that does kinda stick in my head, but this happened much later. So I moved out of my parents' house here in Canada, I think I was like maybe 21, 22. And at that time I was very insistent on doing things my own way, asserting my independence, whatever. And so like I'm sharing a house with like three other people. And I was always open to sharing, like, if I was cooking something, I would tell people, you're welcome to, get some, 'cause that's also a thing, right? You're not cooking adobo for one. It's always like, for other people. But, what hits me is that it got to a point where I got so used to my roommates saying, oh, thanks, no thanks. Like, you know, they're just, they're used to eating their own thing, or whether they actually preferred Filipino food or not. I don't know. I just stopped asking.
And then when my mom came to visit one time and my roommates were there, she was the one who had pointed out, she's like, oh, you're not gonna ask, like, aren't you inviting everybody to..
Nicole: Mm.
Nastasha: Like, eat?
Nicole: Right, right.
Nastasha: And that's where it hit me too. I was like, oh, shit. Like, I've just gotten so used to like, and at that point too, you know, you're budgeting, you're struggling. So like, it's not like I'm feeding these other people from, you know, my own groceries, but. It was just that this particular story kind of reminded me of that specific time, and I did feel ashamed that my mom pointed it out.
She's like, ano ka ba? Di ka nag invite, your roommates, you know, to like, have a meal and sit down. Um, but I guess that's kind of telling of how really central, you know, eating together is, and, sharing food with other people is such an important part of…
Nicole: Yes.
Nastasha: Being a Filipino person.
Nicole: The sharing.
Nastasha: Yeah.
Nicole: Yeah. Thanks for sharing that.
Food as a pathway
Nastasha: Yeah, I just, and for me too, I obviously can talk a lot about food adjacent things for a really long time, but yeah, like a part of why I am really grateful to be able to have these conversations with folks like you and just other people who understand that there is a lot ahead of us. In terms of how we express ourselves through food and how we show others that it really is more than just something that feeds us. The cuisine is like a pathway or a tool to getting to know us better as persons. And that's not just, relegated to, being Filipino or Filipino cuisine. It's like food is a pathway to like having those experiences, and so as we have more of these conversations and there's more people really open to the fact that it's the experience as a whole that matters. You know, even in the Philippines with the Michelin guide coming in, this idea that you're looking at the guest experience, and that's such a huge part of how people experience the cuisine is something that I look forward to seeing too. How it grows over time.
Nicole: Oh, absolutely. And it's inevitable. You know, these are, you know, we're just, yeah, spectators in a story that will continue to evolve and if we pay attention to the other cuisines that have been successful before us, we'll see the path that is fortuitous for us as well. How we grow, how we engage on different levels. Fast casual to, you know, fine dining. What is new for us is really the advent of social media and how we use this medium to tell our story. But ultimately it's really the same, you know.
Nastasha: Mm-hmm.
Nicole: It's just now it's our, it's our turn.
My warmest thanks to Nicole Ponseca for making the time to chat with us for this episode. Head to the links in the show notes to follow her on Instagram and sign up for her newsletter and stay in touch.
The show's theme music is by Crowander, also known as David Szeztay with Segment Music by Eric and McGill Blue dot Sessions and Podington Bear.
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