Filipino Eats Week 2019
Filipino Eats Week is a celebration of Filipino-American culture, community, and food, highlighting the contributions of Filipinos to the Portland Metro Area and its neighboring communities of Beaverton, Hillsboro, and Gresham. It started as a social media campaign aimed at highlighting champions and creators of Filipino delicacies, and has since turned into a much bigger project allowing the community members to touch and experience the beautiful masterpieces of our very own community chefs.
Filipino food is a labor of love, the flavor-filled union of history and tradition, geography and resources, family and culture -- a love as vast and far-reaching as the Filipino diaspora and deeper than the oceans it has crossed. Organizers of Filipino Eats Week aim to bolster support for Filipino-owned restaurants and food businesses that serve as gathering places for the Filipino-American community -- To engage Portland in a conversation not just about the taste of Filipino food, but the ways in which it transcends time and location, bringing people together, weaving influences from an archipelago of more than 7,000 islands, connecting Filipinos across the diaspora through the nostalgic taste of home characterized by soy sauce, garlic, and vinegar. The phrase “have you eaten?” in all the country’s 80+ dialects, synonymous with “I love you.”
This year's participants included Shop Halo Halo, Tinidor Foods, Kombucha Sparks Joy, BarkadaPDX, Derby, Ichiza Kitchen, Hunnybeez, Tambayan, Tamago Brothers, Magna PDX, Chicken Adobo, Naimas, Fork & Spoon House, and Bobalicious. Each year the list grows longer!
After a successful partnership with Foundation for Philippine Progress last year, we learned and experienced how this Portland-based nonprofit organization truly embodied their vision of a full life for every Filipino. It is in this vein that we are excited to make the Foundation for Philippine Progress our life-long partner by making Filipino Eats Week its signature project. On October 26th, the Foundation for Philippine Progress is celebrated its one year anniversary with a fundraiser gala. Proceeds from the organization’s gala will help provide earthquake and typhoon relief, life-saving surgical and medical mission trips, along with psychosocial services in municipalities in Eastern Visayas, areas that are in precarious conditions and economically marginalized, lacking access to basic necessities such as clean water or food.
We also put together the first ever Filipino Time late-night cafe pop-up! Hosted by Tambayan, this late-night pop-up featured classic BBQ skewers from Tinidor Foods, fusion twist adobo popcorn chicken from BarkadaPDX, heart and tummy-warming ginisang kalabasa from Naimas, handcrafted lychee and ginger kombucha from Kombucha Sparks Joy, and Filipino-flavor inspired macarons and tarts from Shop Halo Halo.
What we thought would be a relatively intimate community gathering turned out to be huge hit! We had a line out the door within 30 minutes of opening, and ran out of food in 2 and a half hours! The overwhelming turnout reflects the love and support of the local Portland Filipino community and for that we are incredibly grateful. Maraming Salamat!