Author Chris van Laak
Photographer Chris van Laak
Sisig, a Filipino favorite made with various pork cuts and chicken liver, will “win the hearts and minds of the world.”
This was in 2017 and the late Antony Bourdain had just proclaimed Filipino food the next big thing. The statement by the very much missed American celebrity chef and documentary maker was obviously an exaggeration. Nobody expected all the world to start craving the distinct sweet and sour taste of Filipino food. Still, at least in the US, articles about mouthwatering Pinoy cuisine kept on coming, including in the New York Times, and Google searches for “Filipino restaurants near me” have been trending, too.
In Taipei, not so much.
Filipinos are the second-largest group of foreign residents in Taiwan, but the capital only has a handful of Filipino restaurants, and all of them are within walking distance of each other, near the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. Some only open on weekends, when Filipino factory workers and nurses flock to Taipei to socialize and go to church.
Bonito Cruz Ching, whose family runs Cres-Art Philippine Cuisine, says the cuisines of Vietnam and Thailand, two countries that are also in the top four in terms of foreign residents in Taiwan, are more similar to what Taiwanese are used to.
“Most of our customers are Filipinos, but there are also many Taiwanese who have been introduced to our food by Filipino friends,” he says. “Now they really like it.”
Filipino umami bomb
Cres-Art opened in 1996, and it has never compromised on authenticity. Its barbecue pork, which Bonito says is his customers’ favorite, arrives at the table sizzling alongside rice and two vegetable stews—“chopsuey” and “pinakbet.” The marinade gives the pork’s perfect crust a surprising, sweet tang, but balanced with a spicy vinaigrette, it is perfect. The pinakbet, which features a Filipino staple—a shrimp paste called bagoong—is umami and delicious, especially if you enjoy strong flavors.
Cres-Art serves a wide selection of dishes from the Philippines’ most populous island of Luzon— caldereta, adobo, pork binagoongan—and on Sundays, customers can try everything when the restaurant offers a rich lunch buffet. Afterwards, many of them move on to nearby Shuangcheng Park or other Filipino-run establishments in the area. There are pubs and karaoke bars, but also Filipino grocery stores and remittance service providers.
The clustering of businesses serving a certain clientele is a typical phenomenon in Taipei, and in this case, it obviously makes sense.
There are more Filipino restaurants in other parts of Taiwan, for example in the manufacturing hub of Zhongli(中壢）, but Taipei’s “Little Manila” has no reason to hide.
How it all started
A similar cluster, albeit completely different, can be found near Exit Y25 of Taipei City Mall, a low-key underground shopping center near Taipei Main Station, where at least five Indonesian eateries offer buffet style dining right next to each other. They serve a wide variety of Javanese and Sumatran dishes such as beef rendang and ayam geprek—Indonesia’s take on fried chicken with rice.
The area in central Taipei has long been a weekend gathering spot for Indonesians, most of whom live and work in cities and towns along Taiwan’s west coast, where they, too, work in factories and as live-in nurses. According to official data, there are 244,000 of them in Taiwan—or just 4,000 more than Filipino residents.
Taiwan’s first “migrant workers” arrived in 1989 to work on infrastructure projects commissioned by the central government. Further programs were set up in the 1990s to attract factory workers and nurses and to fulfill Taiwanese companies’ wishes to hire laborers exempted from the national minimum wage. For many of those employers, their workers’ needs (beyond a bed in a dorm and three simple meals per day) was a mere afterthought.
Unsurprisingly, food that tastes like home, at least on a day off, turned out to be something they craved.
At the same time, Taiwan also saw migration of Southeast Asians who happened to have Chinese ancestors, which gave them a straightforward path to citizenship and hence made it easier for them to open businesses. Among those businesses were the first Indonesian and Filipino restaurants that served authentic food to those who crave it the most.
Where bakso reigns
While most “first wave” restaurants offer a wide selection of dishes to cover all cravings, aspiring restaurateurs who arrived later had to find their niche. Among them is Usman Tju, who came to Taiwan in 1999. In 2016, after working in various jobs in the country, he knew what was missing in the market.
His restaurant Pojok Joyo in New Taipei’s Yonghe District (永和) has ever since focused on just two versions of the same dish—noodle soup with Indonesian beef meatballs, or bakso, in the style of the Central Javanese city of Solo. Usman and his childhood friend and business partner Hanafi Putra know what they do best; at their restaurant, you can “only” choose between a classic and a spicy (really spicy!) broth for your noodles and the number and shape of your bakso. Some side dishes are also available (the fried tempeh is a must-have), but everybody comes to Pojok Joyo for a bowl of soup. The exact ingredients are secret, but ginger, lemongrass, and cumin are, according to my humble taste buds, among the main culprits in an explosion of flavors.
Pojok Joyo mostly serves Indonesians, many of whom are local live-in nurses on their breaks or factory workers who make the trip to Taipei on weekends, but it also serves an increasing number of Taiwanese.
“They first come because they are curious, and then they come again and again,” says Angun, a college student who works at Pojok Joyo on weekends.
Burma in New Taipei
Taiwanese food is great, but looking beyond the classics can be eye-opening.
Many groups of people who have made Taiwan their home have left an imprint on its map of culinary subcultures. Some unique restaurants are “hiding” in plain sight between inconspicuous bubble tea shops, while others justify a trip to a neighborhood off the beaten track.
New Taipei City’s Nanshijiao (南勢角) is such a neighborhood. Centered on Huaxin Street, a Burmese community was formed after republican soldiers who had fled to Myanmar during the Chinese Civil War were allowed to settle in Taiwan in the 1950s. After the soldiers, migration of what Taiwan calls “Overseas Chinese” continued through the 1980s, with many of them pouring into Nanshijiao. The community in the area now has up to 40,000 members.
Life along Huaxin Street (華新街） is distinctly Burmese, with some additional Chinese-Burmese flavor. The clientele of the many eateries is unsurprisingly older than in restaurants catering to Indonesians or Filipinos—the craving for food that tastes like in the old country apparently doesn’t go away, even after many decades in Taiwan.
As for the authenticity of the restaurants, the opinions are divided. A Burmese friend of mine who stayed in Taipei for an art residency said the shwe taung noodles (玉山麵) that are my personal favorite at a small eatery named Daizu Guniang (傣族姑娘) are not like the ones she usually eats in Yangon. But they don’t taste particularly Taiwanese either.
Their flavor profile might have its roots in a unique in-between.
