Latest news with #Filipino-inspired
Global News
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Global News
Saturday Sips: Filipino-inspired cocktails
See more sharing options Send this page to someone via email Share this item on Twitter Share this item via WhatsApp Share this item on Facebook Theme: Filipino-inspired cocktails Cocktails: 1. T & TEA Ingredients: 45mL Lemongrass infused Tanduay Gold 15mL alternative acid (or supasawa) 130mL H2 sweet tea Infuse 3 cracked stalks of lemongrass into 1 bottle of rum for 2 hours up to 1 day, depending on taste. Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy Alternative acid: 300mL water 9g citric 6g malic 0.9g tartaric 0.9g kosher salt Stir well to combine; this replaces lime or lemon in cocktails without waste. H2 Sweet Tea: 1L boiling water 20g loose leaf black tea (Taylor is using Westin Blend) 400mL 2:1 simple syrup Steep tea for 20-30 minutes until strong; strain tea leaves and add simple syrup to tea. Allow to reach room temperature before refrigerating to prevent cloudiness. Method: Build cocktail in Collins glass with ice, garnish with cracked lemongrass stock. Story continues below advertisement 2. 'Safe Escape' (Spirit-Free Cocktail) Ingredients: 20mL Mango puree 12mL Coconut syrup 24mL Acid Adjusted grapefruit 68mL Aloe Vera Juice 12mL Condensed milk Method: Add all ingredients into a shaker. Shake hard to combine. Dirty dump into black tiki mug and top with crushed ice. Garnish with pineapple slice, mint and mallow flower
Eater
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Eater
Where to Eat Filipino Food in Houston, From Halo-Halo to Lechon
Skip to main content Current eater city: Houston Marcy de Luna is a Houston-based food journalist with more than a decade of experience covering dining trends, restaurant culture, and the hospitality industry. Houston's diverse culinary landscape continues to reflect its multicultural roots, and its Filipino food scene has a well-earned moment in the spotlight. Whether you're craving sizzling sisig, rich kare-kare, or the nostalgic desserts like ube cake and leche flan, Houston offers several spots serving authentic and modern interpretations of Filipino comfort food. From family-run cafes tucked into supermarkets to immersive supper clubs serving multi-course tastings inspired by the Philippines' rich history, each establishment celebrates the bold, tangy, sweet, and savory flavors that define Filipino cuisine. Here's where to find some of Houston's best Filipino restaurants, bakeries, and food stalls. Marcy de Luna is a Houston-based food journalist with more than a decade of experience covering dining trends, restaurant culture, and the hospitality industry. Houston's diverse culinary landscape continues to reflect its multicultural roots, and its Filipino food scene has a well-earned moment in the spotlight. Whether you're craving sizzling sisig, rich kare-kare, or the nostalgic desserts like ube cake and leche flan, Houston offers several spots serving authentic and modern interpretations of Filipino comfort food. From family-run cafes tucked into supermarkets to immersive supper clubs serving multi-course tastings inspired by the Philippines' rich history, each establishment celebrates the bold, tangy, sweet, and savory flavors that define Filipino cuisine. Here's where to find some of Houston's best Filipino restaurants, bakeries, and food stalls. Held at Kitchen Studio Downtown, this casual Filipino-inspired supper club features a five-course tasting menu that explores Filipino cuisine from an elevated perspective. Highlights include oyster kinilaw, quail dinuguan, and octopus kare-kare. Each course is paired with complimentary beverages, such as a lychee-based palate cleanser, curated red and white wines, and non-alcoholic sips made with calamansi and guava or mango. Reservations are required, so be sure to book ahead. Launched initially as a food truck in 2012, this relaxed Filipino American burger joint offers a mix of street food and comfort fare. Try the chicken pupu plate, featuring garlic rice and soy-glazed chicken, siopao steamed buns filled with a choice of pork or chicken, or go big with the wagyu beef patty-stacked Amboy Burger, topped with bacon, cheddar, lettuce, tomato, onion, butter pickles, and a homemade mayonnaise. One of Houston's best-kept Filipino secrets is tucked inside an H-E-B on Bellaire Boulevard. This family-owned restaurant offers diners a variety of options. Think silog-style plates like tocilog with tocino (sweet fried pork), itlog (fried eggs), and sinangag (garlic fried rice), plus crispy chicken wings and platters of fried fish or a fried half-chicken served with diner's choice of rice or fries. Take your fare to go or settle in at a table on-site and dig in. Beyond just a bakery, Godo's serves classic savory dishes like pancit palabok and grilled pompano alongside a variety of traditional Filipino sweets. At this casual spot, located near the Texas Medical Center, the kakanin (sticky rice cakes) are especially popular. The soft, fluffy mamon sponge cakes make for an ideal afternoon merienda, or snack. With a location off Houston's Main Street not far from Filipino fried chicken joint Jollibee, and another adjacent to the Seafood City complex in Sugar Land, Baker's Son is a dessert haven for anyone with a sweet tooth. Diners will also find plenty of ube treats, including purple-hued ube cheese rolls and ube coffee cake topped with cream cheese. Be sure to try the custard egg pie, a sweet Filipino dessert reminiscent of egg custard, or the puto flan, a rice cake muffin that combines leche flan and puto into one delightful dessert. This casual buffet-style restaurant is ideal for those who want to sample various dishes in one sitting. Make your way through a generous selection of Filipino staples, including crispy lechon, flavorful kare-kare, and fried lumpia. Save room for the sticky-sweet biko and chewy pichi-pichi for dessert, and sip refreshing drinks like kalamansi citrus juice and sago't gulaman made with sago or tapioca pearls, agar-agar jelly, and a brown sugar syrup. 9671 Bissonnet St, Houston, TX 77036 (713) 272-8888 (713) 272-8888 Visit Website Though this is definitely a supermarket, Seafood City offers some of the best Filipino cuisine in the state. Shoppers are almost immediately greeted by its bustling food court, which features Halo Halo's assortment of fruity drinks, shakes, and juices; rice bowls and Filipino bolognese from Sizzle; a self-service station with hot foods, including slices served from a whole roasted pig; and the ever-popular Grill City, which serves a seemingly endless selection of grilled proteins, including whole squid, fish, skewered and barbecued meats, and chicharones fried fresh. If it's your first time, give the food court and Seafood City's many aisles a once-over to explore a storeful of options before committing to one. Finish the trip by stopping into the Baker's Son on the way out. This Sugar Land outpost of this Florida-founded Filipino bakery is filled with some of the most indulgent treats, with a special focus on ube. You'll find shelves and shelves of goodies, including ube cheese rolls, pan de ube, and trays of ube coffee cake iced with cream cheese frosting. 15237 North Southwest Freeway, Sugar Land, Texas 77478 Visit Website
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Elk Grove to welcome 2 new fast food chain locations
( — Two fast food chains, Jollibee and Angry Chickz, announced they will soon be opening up their first locations in the Elk Grove area, according to officials. Video Above: City of Woodland celebrated the grand opening of Woodland Regional Park Preserve (May 17) In an Instagram post, The Ridge Elk Grove shopping center announced in early May that the Filipino-inspired fast-food chain Jollibee will be opening at their location later this year. 'Our mouths are already watering as we count down the days until we can snack on some of their famous fried chicken…' said the shopping center's Instagram post. Details on when the location will be opening are yet to be released. This will be the second Jollibee location in the Sacramento area. Additionally, fast food chain Angry Chickz announced the addition of their location at the Elk Grove Commons shopping center at the corner of Elk Grove Boulevard and Bruceville Road. The Nashville-style hot chicken will be the first in Elk Grove, making it the 27th location in California and the 30th system-wide. Firework safety precautions as Lodi police crack down on the use, sales of illegal fireworks 'We're excited to open our 30th location in Elk Grove,' said David Mkhitaryan, founder and CEO of Angry Chickz. 'This community has an incredible energy, and we can't wait to not only introduce our craveable menu and an unforgettable dining experience, but also build real connections with the people who make this city special.' More information on Jollibee can be found on their website. More information on Angry Chickz can be found here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Eater
30-05-2025
- Business
- Eater
Legendary Los Angeles Brand Randy's Donuts Rolls Into the Bay Area
Like moths to a flame, the 32-foot, oversized doughnut that has loomed over the 405 and graced the top of Randy's Donuts in Inglewood has drawn customers to its doors for over 73 years. Now the brand is heading to the Bay Area, SFGATE reports, with plans to open a new location in Santa Clara at 2595 Homestead Road. It's all part of a franchise agreement involving Bay Area restaurant owner Adeel Siddiqui, of the Port of Peri Peri brand. That location will open in 'the third quarter of 2025,' but that's not all: Siddiqui and his partners also plan to open Randy's Donuts locations in San Jose, Redwood City, and Fremont, as well. Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant, Part II A popular Bay Area wine importer is adding a new shop to its ranks: After 53 years in business, Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant will open a second location in the fall or early winter. The San Francisco Chronicle reports the new shop will be located at Marin Country Mart in Larkspur. Check out this Caribbean- and Filipino-inspired pop-up dinner Chef Leonard Roberts III brings his Silent Table pop-up to Oakland's Burdell on Monday, June 2. Roberts is an alum of the Brundo chef residency program at Cafe Colucci, and now he's readying a five-course dinner 'inspired by the food and flavors of the Caribbean and Filipino islands.' Tickets and seating times are available via Tock. Verjus launches a lunchtime deal If you're among the San Francisco locals who eagerly welcomed back Jackson Square wine bar Verjus in November 2024, the team has a fun new offering: prix fixe lunch. From 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., Thursday through Saturday, diners can relax under the shiny red ceiling to enjoy a starter and main course, plus a glass of wine or dessert, for $50. The launch menu includes a decision between sugar snap peas or pate en croute to begin; for the plat principal, diners can choose the omelette Boursin, saucisse manchego, or le grand aioli. For the dessert route, nosh on profiteroles or pain perdu. Extra dishes to add to the table will be available as well, such as oysters, scallops, or razor clams. Sign up for our newsletter.
San Francisco Chronicle
05-05-2025
- Business
- San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco's downtown malls are empty. But there's one thing keeping them alive
It's lunch hour in downtown San Francisco. The food court at the troubled San Francisco Centre mall is nearly deserted. Slices of pizza wilt under heat lamps, and some restaurants have their shades rolled down. Outside on Fifth Street, half a dozen men are loading sacks of grease-spattered food onto mopeds and e-bikes, and preparing to haul them across town. They belong to a burgeoning gig work ecosystem that's breathing life into otherwise decrepit downtown shopping malls and their dozens of fast-casual restaurants. 'We couldn't survive without them,' Manuel Ramirez, who operates a burger shop and taqueria in San Francisco Centre, said of DoorDash and Uber Eats. But those apps, in turn, rely on a scrappy workforce of independent contractors who are mostly recent immigrants, gliding through the city on two wheels for what amounts to as little as $8 an hour, including the agonizing waits between orders, by the workers' calculations. Hailing mostly from Nepal, but also Venezuela and Morocco, this small army of couriers awaits their next orders huddled under an alcove outside the former Westfield mall or idled alongside the nearby Metreon shopping center. Clad in puffer jackets and motorcycle helmets they never seem to remove, they seamlessly enter the squall of traffic, dodging Muni buses and muscling cyclists out of bike lanes. They log up to 150 miles a day on their rented, moped-style e-bikes — cheaper than cars, and no driver's license necessary — laden with sushi or burritos in insulated boxes. With the downtown recovery still jagged and office occupancy at a nadir, these delivery orders are a lifeline to restaurant operators like Ramirez. Foot traffic to Izzy and Wooks, his Filipino-inspired burger spot, and Mija Cochinita, his Yucatan-style taqueria, cratered after the departure of Bloomingdale's, the mall's anchor tenant. Now delivery makes up more than a third of his business, though he needs to account for the over 25% fee the platforms charge him. What are fast becoming ghost malls are naturally transforming into something closer to ghost kitchens — centrally located, takeout focused restaurants. At Shake Shack, for instance, bags of burgers and fries piled up at the shop's pickup window during a recent lunch rush, though few, if any customers lined up at the electronic ordering kiosks. And at Chipotle inside the Metreon, online orders now make up about half the sales, said the store's manager, Marvin Ulloa, as he handed off two packages to waiting delivery-app couriers. The value that delivery workers provide comes at personal cost. That's what Manvir Damai was learning as he sat parked outside San Francisco Centre on a Friday afternoon. All around him, other couriers were walking in and out of the mall, gripping crinkly fast food bags and nervously checking their phones. Damai also had his eyes glued to his phone screen, scrutinizing an order for Wetzel's Pretzels. He was already seven minutes late, and in danger of incurring a violation for missing DoorDash's estimated time of arrival. If he accumulates six in a span of 100 deliveries, the company might deactivate his account and pull the plug on his only source of income. 'I'm still figuring out how this works,' Damai said in Hindi, referring to the app that funds his apartment on Geary Street and enables him to send money to a wife and four children in Nepal. In some senses, workers like Damai are the evolutionary descendants of the bike messengers who zipped through SoMa and the Financial District during the first dot-com boom of the 1990s, sweating in cargo shorts as they hauled documents to corporate offices. DoorDash, the largest delivery platform, said 76% of San Francisco deliveries were made on two wheels, which they touted for easing congestion in urban environments. Yet, the rise of food delivery apps has given it new dimensions in a society that expects prompt service. When UC Irvine Law Professor Veena Dubal looks at the moped workforce in San Francisco, she sees exploitation on multiple fronts. 'In what we think of as traditional employment, it would be the job of the company' to provide equipment, safe working conditions and a living wage, Dubal said. She noted that food delivery platforms have bypassed that responsibility by establishing themselves as 'network companies' under California law, meaning they supply the software to facilitate the outsourcing, but don't directly employ the workers. Although voter-approved Proposition 22 guarantees 120% of local minimum wage for every hour that a delivery person spends en route, it does not count the time spent waiting. The San Francisco food delivery market is also particularly competitive. So many people had already created DoorDash delivery accounts in downtown San Francisco and Oakland that, as of late April, some ZIP codes were at capacity. The app promised to send an email notification when space opened for new dashers. (A representative for DoorDash did not provide a figure for its number of Bay Area dashers or its capacity.) A fair number of Bay Area Doordashers treat the platform more as a side hustle, to make extra money or get exercise if they are making deliveries on a bicycle. One casual gig worker who spoke with the Chronicle said he delivers for both DoorDash and UberEats, and concentrates narrowly on grocery orders from Safeway or Target that maximize his earnings. The worker said that since he speaks English, knows how to navigate store aisles to quickly find items and can follow specific directions from customers, he's able to net $30 from a job that takes about 15 minutes — roughly quadruple the amount he would make from delivering fast food. The workers who congregate at San Francisco Centre and Metreon don't have that degree of flexibility. Faced with language barriers, they focus mostly on lower-level fast food orders that are more straightforward, but earn less money. Many, like Damai, treat the gig as a full-time job, routinely clocking 12-hour days to make between $100 and $150. A portion goes toward bike rental, which costs about $330 a month. Slow days are a torment. Instead of zig-zagging along busy roads, a delivery courier might spend hours posted outside the malls, waiting for their phone to buzz. Mehdi Lamari, a recent immigrant from Morocco, was doing just that on a rainy Wednesday. Shaking his head wearily, he flashed the display screen on his phone, with a graph that showed his weekly earnings. On Monday he worked nine hours for $72.28. On Tuesday, he drew $53.29. 'This is not like a real job,' Lamari said. Then there are the brusque or high-maintenance customers, who might snatch food through a door jamb, wander away from a pickup spot or forget to leave the pin number for their apartment buildings. Damai recalled times when someone became incensed that an order was wrong, and dispatched him to fix it. He felt like he couldn't say no. 'I'll drive two or three miles to deliver something worth $5,' he said, convinced that if he rejects any job the app will penalize him. One person who has keenly observed the lives and struggles of delivery-app couriers is Peter Chu, who did gig work for DoorDash as a community college student in Woodland (Yolo County). He realized he could make more profit on a different side of the business. A couple of years ago, Chu and a friend, Benda Zhu, in Davis launched a rental business specializing in electric bikes with cargo racks for food delivery. They expanded HMP bikes to a warehouse in South of Market a few months ago. Located a few blocks from the Metreon and Westfield, it's an anchor point for the growing labor force. Many couriers rent from HMP, at rates ranging from $79 a week to $1,000 for a three-month lease. They also come to the warehouse to fix punctured tires or make other repairs. To reach their largely Nepalese clientele, HMP hired an assistant, Mike Sherpa, who speaks multiple Himalayan languages. When e-bikes are stolen — as they are frequently in downtown San Francisco — Chu might offer the rider a temporary replacement, though if the bike isn't recovered in a week, the renter is responsible for 50% of the loss. This catch, really an outsourcing of risk, strikes Dubal, the law professor, as unsettling. She compares HMP to other businesses that lease cars to ride-hail drivers, entrenching a system of frenetic, underpaid work. 'They are profiting off the desperation of immigrants,' she said of HMP — though Chu instead likened HMP to a business during a gold rush selling shovels. Nonetheless, Dubal went on, 'I don't think they are the primary or only exploiter here. All fingers point towards DoorDash.' Representatives of DoorDash pushed back, insisting that Dashers 'earn what they want, on their own terms' and citing the wage provision in Prop 22. 'Calling that exploitation isn't just wrong, but it's out of touch and offensive,' company spokesperson Julian Crowley said in a statement. A spokesperson for Uber Eats said he could not comment without verifying that the workers 'actually use the Uber Eats platform.' Some delivery workers who spoke to the Chronicle conceded they like the go-it-alone aspect of being an independent contractor. All the same, they were quick to acknowledge the downsides. Work is unpredictable, compensation can swing wildly and the job comes with few protections. Theft is a perennial fear for Damai, who knows that if he leaves his bike unattended with food on it, for as little as two minutes, he'll return to find everything gone. At night he locks it up outside his apartment on Geary Street, hoping for the best. After all, the machine generates his income. It pays the rent, provides a little to send back home and helps Damai live on the margins of a city he can't afford, even as he helps drive its economic recovery.
