‘I Am A Filipino’ cookbook nominated for James Beard Award

“If it’s a dream, please don’t wake me up. It feels so real.”

New York-based Filipino restaurateur Nicole Ponseca still could not believe that her book, “I Am A Filipino,” was nominated for a James Beard Award this year. 

The book, which she co-wrote with chef Miguel Trinidad, is one of the finalists under the International Books category along with Anissa Helou’s “Feast: Food of the Islamic World” and Austin Bush’s “The Food of Northern Thailand.”

Ponseca is the owner and co-founder of two well-loved Filipino restaurants in New York, Jeepney and Maharlika. 

She has been credited as one of the people who helped put Filipino cuisine on the culinary map.

In “I Am Filipino,” Ponseca and Trinidad share traditional Filipino recipes with an “unexpected and addictive” twist. 

The winners of the James Beard Awards will be announced on April 26.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Pinoy restaurant week kicks off in NY, NJ

NEW YORK - Now on its second year, Filipino Restaurant Week is back, bigger and better with 15 popular Pinoy restaurants in New York and New Jersey participating this time.

Patterned after the New York Restaurant Week, foodies can sample a variety of Filipino cuisine at an affordable fixed price.

A three-course meal costs $25 dollars for lunch and $35 for dinner.

Filipino Restaurant Week was first launched in 2015. It shines a spotlight on Filipino restaurants as Philippine cuisine becomes more and more popular in the US mainstream.

"Last year, it was sort of an introduction to the Filipino food kasi everyone was talking about the Filipino Food as the 'in' thing, kaya lang alam ba nila kung saan sila makakakain?" Philippine Consul General Mario De Leon Jr. said. "This time, we’re really trying to look more on how to really sustain the Filipino restaurant business here."

Participating business owners say the restaurant week not only elevates the profile of Filipino cuisine, it helps feed their cash registers.

Nicole Ponseca, owner of Maharlika and Jeepney said, "We saw a bump in business, for the week, it was awesome and new faces too, gives an excuse or reason for people to come in."

Tyrone Conshue, owner of Pinoy Filipino Restaurant said, "Every time you’re mentioned, it helps, it’s gonna really bring a lot of people who were nosing us before around the county."

Filipino restaurant week’s launch at the Philippine Consulate in New York also served as a way for restaurateurs to learn from each other’s experience.

Food and travel blogger Kat Popiel said running a restaurant is a tough business in New York City.

"Also know you have a responsibility, a good responsibility, a happy responsibility to the Filipino community to spread the message of what sinigang is or what a choriburger is. It’s all part of the business. The more you can promote your menu and your way of doing food, the more you’re elevating Filipino food as a status," she said.

Ponseca added, "I'm really hopeful. I feel a camaraderie for these startups. I see a lot of women, female Filipino Entrepreneurs. I reach out to them and hopefully we can support each other because this business is very very hard."

More information about Filipino Restaurant Week and the participating restaurants and their menu can be found at www.newyorkpcg.org/frw

Read more on Balitang America.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

US Filipino food fans: Balut is here to stay

NEW YORK – Whether it’s traditional Filipino or its Filipino American interpretation, Filipino food has arrived.

That’s according to a new story by the Washington Post, "At long last, Filipino food arrives. What took it so long?" published on April 21.

Three years ago, Bizarre Food host Andrew Zimmern predicted that Filipino food will be the next big thing in the foodie world.

But even before Zimmern’s prediction, in 2011 a Filipino food movement was slowly taking shape to introduce Filipino cuisine to the mainstream.

Restaurants like Purple Yam (formerly Cendrillion) and Talde in Brooklyn, Maharlika Moderno Filipino and Jeepney Gastropub in Manhattan were among those that began serving upscale takes on Pinoy food.

"I think that as Filipino and non-Filipinos begin to embrace Filipino food more and more, it is now really up to all of us restaurateurs and as proprietors to keep the level up," said Maharlika and Jeepney co-owner, Nicole Ponseca.

At the center of it all was the boiled fetal duck egg delicacy called balut.

Top TV chefs Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern even ate balut on national TV.

For three years now, Maharlika and Jeepney’s balut eating contest has become a yearly tradition in Lower Manhattan.

What used to be just a fear factor dare became a symbol of the Filipino food movement in America.

Maharlika customer Jermaine Holliway who has sampled balut before said, "This is a delicacy of a culture, of a country, it made it special."

But when a Business Insider’s story about balut became viral, it caught the attention of an animal rights activist Gabrielle Hardy, who is now urging Maharlika to stop serving what her petition calls disgusting and distasteful for serving an unborn baby duck.

New York Animal Rights Alliance America even calls it “murder” to eat balut. Its co-founder Kay Riviello said there was suffering on the part of the duck fetus since the baby duck is highly developed with a nervous system.

Patrons of Maharlika, whether balut eaters or not, side with Pinoy restaurateurs.

"It’s not murder, not at all. I think it’s disrespectful to us as Filipinos. I think they do that out of ignorance," Leah Abraham of Boca Raton, Florida.

Ponseca said that with no sanitation codes or state and federal laws broken, Maharlika will continue to serve this now more than ever popular Filipino delicacy.

"This isn’t pro-balut or anti-balut. This is a choice to be pro-Filipino, which I am," she said.

Ponseca says while the stop-balut petition may reach its goal of 5,000 signatures, one thing is for sure — balut is here to stay.

"Thank you to the petitioner to continue to shed light on balut because there’s many more people that have come in now, " she said.

Read more from Balitang America

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Balut gets spotlight in New York

MANILA – The humble Filipino delicacy balut has been getting a lot of buzz in New York City, thanks to a restaurant called Maharlika.

The restaurant, owned by Filipino-American Nicole Ponseca, has been attracting more customers because of balut, a fertilized duck egg that is common street food in the Philippines, but is deemed strange or even disgusting in other parts of the world.

Eating the delicacy has been considered a “challenge” in reality shows such as “Fear Factor” and “Survivor.”

Just last week, Maharlika’s balut was featured in a video published by the US business and technology website Business Insider, with its staff having mixed reviews about it.

“While this looks like a normal hard-boiled egg, there’s more to it than meets the eye,” said Sydney Kramer, operations coordinator of Business Insider, as she held the egg before stepping inside Maharlika.

In the video, Ponseca explained that balut is “a great source of protein,” adding that “some say it’s an aphrodisiac.”

She went on to teach Kramer how to properly eat the delicacy – find the fat round side of the egg and crack the top, slurp the “juice,” and eat the yolk and the duck embryo.

“At the bottom part of the egg is the white, which you don’t usually eat. It has the texture of a pencil eraser,” Ponseca explained.

Kramer said she enjoyed eating the balut, describing the broth as “strong chicken stock” and the yolk as “like custard.”

She did not spare the duck embryo, too. “It tastes like chicken liver,” she said.

After trying it herself, Kramer brought some balut for her co-workers at Business Insider to try. But unlike her, they had mixed reactions.

Most of her female colleagues were turned off by the sight of the embryo, with most of them hesitant to eat it.

One of them even said: “I feel like I want to rinse my mouth now.”

But Kramer’s male colleagues were happy to try the delicacy.

“I think I swallowed it too fast,” one of them said, smiling.

Every year, Maharlika holds a balut eating contest in New York, with last year’s winner downing 18 eggs in five minutes.

This year’s balut eating contest, which was held last June 3, was attended by more than 200 people, according to a Facebook page for the event.



It seems that Filipino food is slowly making a mark on the restaurant scene in New York. Before the balut, the icy dessert halo-halo recently got raves  in the city for its unique flavors and textures.


Halo-halo, which literally means “mix-mix,” has been “taking over New York City” according to an article published in The Atlantic Wire.



Last June, the Filipino dessert was included in CNN’s list of “25 best foods for summer” to mark the start of the warm season in the US.

A few months before that, halo-halo was praised by well-known chef and travel host Anthony Bourdain when he tried it for an episode of “Parts Unknown,” which airs on CNN.

Pinoy food is next big thing?

Last year, “Bizarre Foods” host Andrew Zimmern predicted that Filipino cuisine will be the next big thing among American diners.

In an interview with the website of the US morning show “Today,” Zimmern said: “I predict, two years from now, Filipino food will be what we will have been talking about for six months… I think that’s going to be the next big thing.”

“I want to go on record – this is not something that’s hot somewhere and will get hot everywhere else,” he said. “It’s just starting. I think it’s going to take another year and a half to get up to critical mass.”

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com