This isn’t a restaurant review. We just love to go to this not-so-expensive Thai restaurant near our son’s school. On certain occasions, we have a quick lunch there before picking him up. What’s interesting is every time we are there we couldn’t stop daydreaming about owning and operating our own Filipino restaurant in Beijing. Brainstorming. We feel strongly that the locals especially middle class and above would really love our food packaged both sophisticated and ethnic in a European setting. European meaning – give them a taste of Philippine colonial experience. Bahay na bato. This photo here is what we have in mind. Oh well… dream on.
Thai Fried Rice – without shrimp paste, a bit spicy.
Vegetable Roll – similar to our lumpiang shanghai but all veggies inside; sauce is sweet & sour.
Barbeque Chicken – with curry, interesting.
My favorite Tom Yam Soup was devoured right away I couldn’t wait for the photo op.
My father, a farmer in his hometown before working his way to becoming an accountant, definitely influenced my cooking in a lot of ways than I thought. My siblings and I were raised in a backyard full of fruit trees and vegetable garden. We spent weekends and the summer breaks running around with ducks, chickens, goats and pigs. I had wonderful memories of gathering eggs, butchering chickens, selling vegetables and the sweet aroma of preserved fruits. But my love for art led me to a degree in Architecture. Just few months after getting my license, I went abroad and lived independently at age 23. Definitely no maid, no cook, and a totally different food culture. Along the way I met lots of friends and spent what seemed a lifetime learning new tricks and recipes.
Now living in Auckland, I am a work-from-home mum who juggles time between work, fun and family - in pursuit of work-life balance. No matter how busy I am, I love the idea of cooking for my family. My blog chronicles home cooking greatly influenced by life outside my home country from Southeast Asia to Beijing and Auckland. And most of the time, being busy also means easy (sometimes quick), affordable meals.
hi
u should visit thailand once again and experience the street food.that’s what i did last august. went there just by myself to focus on the food learning how to cook and eating my way all around the city. a most gratifying experiencece for the soul and the tummy. i have with me a small pocket book that details which street to go to for a particular thai dish.
How wonderful to cook home food and share this with foreigners. Keep on dreaming, you’ll never know when it will turn into reality. Great idea, bahay na bato.
angelo, going back to Thailand is always part of our plans though we still couldn’t find the time. We have a very good Chinese-Thai friend who never fails to invite us to stay w/ them every year.
Kai, the concept would be home-cooking na maganda ang packaging. If this thing pushes through we would like a good (but not yet well known) chef from pinas to do the cooking. Ofcourse hindi ako hehehe There’s another place here that’s very popular with expats. It’s basically Singaporean street food served indoors. Galing din.
Hi Iska, this a great idea! I hope your plans go smoothly well. Filipino food is not widely known and this is a great way to promote it. A friend of mine who’s a chef does a 15 minute tv cooking show here in Jersey once a week and she’s been talking me to do a feature about Filipino food twice a month – she wanted me to showcase Adobo! If only i’m not shy on the camera, huh? I did say i’d think about it i know this is an opportunity to get Filipino food noticed but i don’t like to watch myself on video camera let alone being on TV where everyone will recognise me! LOL. I don’t want to be famous just rich! hehe.
If there’s a Filipino restaurant in Beijing we’d be regular customers. We make do with the filipino menu at Goose and Duck in the meantime