Filipino Group Makes Their Scorching Debut at Hot & Spicy Fest

Attendees at the festival queue to try Kusina ni Kabayan's goods

You still managed to organize the booth despite not having the resources other restaurants have. How did you pull it off? What were the challenges that you faced?
Our WeChat group is essentially a community of talented Filipinos and I know many of them can really deliver and have the skills and passion for helping others. The Hot & Spicy Festival was the first event that we’ve joined. We were quite nervous at first because we’re not a fully-fledged restaurant, hence we don’t have enough equipment and other materials. Another issue was funding, but our members helped us fundraise and find sponsors.

After we secured the necessary documents and funding, I assigned several volunteers to lead different teams. Lorena Zhao and Gandy Gulaiman led our design team and made sure our booth decorations and other branding materials would stand out. Thea Trani coordinated with our chefs while Roxanne Monalim contacted Filipino sellers across China – yes, we invited Filipino sellers from other Chinese cities! Meanwhile, JR Torres took care of our photography and helped with food preparation, and Cecil Cagape organized the ordering and delivery of our food equipment. These Filipinos have their respective day jobs but still dedicated time to make our booth possible.

The people who cooked our dishes are chefs by trade and they accept catering services. For example, if you loved our sisig (pork seasoned with lime and chili peppers), Jason Eugene Sagun made it together with his wife. Our Bicol Express (pork stew with long chili, coconut milk, and shrimp paste) specialty was made by Ana Liza Siman, who can’t even eat spicy food! The spicy longanisa (Filipino-style sausage) was made by Tianjin-based entrepreneur Roger Esguerra. The tasty humba dish (a southern Philippine version of adobo) that we served was prepared by Gilbert San Jose, while the unique Don’t Be Silly, Eat Sili [chili] Ice Cream was specially made by our chef coordinator, Thea. Our samalamig (Filipino refreshments) were prepared by JR, who used to be a barista in the Philippines.

You mentioned that there were other sellers from across China. Tell us how you came up with that idea.
The Kusina ni Kabayan community got bigger because the members invited their Filipino friends from outside of Beijing. Other members were recommended to me, and then I asked them if they could deliver their products to Beijing. Most of them said yes, so our organizing team thought it would be nice to promote them in our booth.

These sellers gave us boxes of their products for free and shouldered the delivery to Beijing. We used their products for sample tasters and a lot of people who lined up in our booth loved them! (To see the list of sellers, visit this page: kusinanikabayan.wordpress.com.)

The line gets even longer ...

So what’s next for Kusina ni Kabayan?
We were very happy that all of our customers were satisfied and many of them brought home our products! And did you know that six out of 10 customers at the booth asked us where they could buy our products? We were very thrilled that a lot of people were asking where our restaurant was. We told our customers we don’t have a physical location yet, though our sellers and cooks can do deliveries and catering services.

With that being said, I thought maybe it’s time to have a new Filipino restaurant in Beijing (there used to be one called Speedy V). We’re talking about the details and finding sponsors to make this community group a restaurant. While doing that, we are preparing our vendors and cooks for smaller events like seasonal bazaars and markets. Another team is also organizing another big project which gathered many other talented Filipinos to give them an opportunity to experience event planning and management.

To find out more about ordering Filipino food, or helping Kusina ni Kabayan grow their community group through sponsorships or donations, add Pengson on WeChat at PerlitaPengson1.

Think you can handle more heat? Then be sure to check out the latest issue of our hot & spicy-themed magazine and more of our ongoing chili-related restaurant coverage so that you can keep the burn going.

Photos courtesy of JR Torres/Kusina ni Kabayan, Andy Penafuerte