Why has Filipino food never gone mainstream?

[hyper cutter]

pinoys lost

 

[damnthosejs]

Originally Posted by chickhien

i asked my culinary chef friend (filipino) why ive never seen a filipino restaurant, he said for the following reasons:
1. filipinos have discriminating taste when it comes to their own food. meaning everyone's mom or dad makes a certain dish vastly different from other families.
2. filipinos will hate on a filipino restaurant because it doesnt taste the way they expected due to reason number 1
3. would you eat at a filipino restaurant if another filipino person told you the food sucked?

that applies with ANY cuisine though.

if someone can find a way of making Filipino food the way North Americans want it, I'm pretty sure it would go mainstream as other Asian cuisines.

 

[the north west]

Originally Posted by eddiee21

One simple answer is cause it's straight nasty. Filipino food is the worst food. Seriously, dinuguan

, balut

. And all the other dishes which all consist of boiled meat and some water and seasoning. Ain't no one trying to eat that crap. Even the staples of Filipino foods, lumpia and pancit don't cut it when compared to other ethnic cuisines.

Yes, I am Filipino.

 

[dcortes23]

where in seattle we're getting a Jollibee!!

 

[sudnec]

i feel that a lot people base their preferences after trying only on a few dishes.  btw balut is not originally from the philippines and all my lao, viet, khmer, mien homies eat that stuff too and LOVE it. i dont. and every culture has their exotic extreme foods. and if you are at least asian you already know what im talking about. but as far as filipino food goes i think people need to give it a chance because a lot of it is really awesome. ask an ilocano person.

 

[iron mike]

1 thing looked good...ill stick to my american garbage.

 

[brownin187]

The only restaurants ran by Filipinos in my area are West-Indian restaurants..Go figure.

 

[marath0n]

I've eaten alot of Filipino food. 90% of it is bland.

 

[Los Angeles]

I think a lot of people are eating at all the wrong places.

There are plenty of Americanized-Filipino Fast Food joints that are just CRAP, turrrrribleee food.

Even Filipinos who've been in the states get away from real traditional cooking - but there is always ONE person in the family that can throw down.

To each his own though.

 

[acbboyz84]

The Filipino around me are mostly fat and has high cholesterol because of the high fat in their diets

 

[jayjunkie]

I'm filipino and I don't like eating at other filipino restaurants. Nothing beats home cooked food. Everytime I leave a filipino restaurant with my family, we always talk about how much better my dad's sinigang is or how salty the pancit was. I will make a exception for Valerio's pastries and Max's fried chicken.

 

[tyrekeevans]

its because of the presentation, it does not look appealing.

It tastes great tho

 

[heemsta]

baluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut haha

went to pinoy pinay for lunch yesterday

 

[ekrev]

cuz filipino food ALWAYS taste different. it's not like pizza where it pretty much tastes the same no matter where you go.

with filipino food, whether you have it home cooked, at a friends house, restaurant...it always tastes different.

 

[fivestarfob]

cause its salty.

 

[purplenurple1414]

lumpia

 

[crank lucas]

balut going mainstream lmaooooooooooo

 

[younggunna714]

Because its just really not that good.

 

[hk feet 27]

Originally Posted by bright nikes

For all my folks in Socal, check out: Magic Wok, Artesia.

Great eats for CHEAP

The LA Times wrote an article about this particular restaurant a month ago.  I will have to venture to Artesia one of these days and have a taste for myself.

 

[blackchiney06]

To those that mentioned the fact that Filipino people seem to like cold food, I thought it was only the ones that I knew

but I guess it's universal. I've been to about 10 Filipino family parties and mostly all of them had room temperature food and told me if I wanted it warm I could microwave it but all of them seemed to be eating it cold. Cold spaghetti is definitely not nice

I agree with someone who mentioned that Filipino food on a whole is heavily influenced by other cultures, pancit is basically chow mein, lumpia is basically the average spring roll. I live in Toronto with more than most places other than the Bay Area with Filipino people and alot of the people I know don't even really eat Filipino food that much. It's mostly Chinese/ Japanese they go for.

 

[damnthosejs]

Originally Posted by marath0n

I've eaten alot of Filipino food. 90% of it is bland.

whoever was cooking them sucks. we probably have the most peculiar tastes when it comes to Asian cuisine. I dare you to say Papaitan is bland, I'd give you a swift one

and to that person who pointed out the fat filipinos who cook oily food: that's their choice. there's so much filipino food you can cook without all the grease.

 

[franchise3]

Too influenced by other cultures. Lumpia? Basically an egg roll. Etc to the etc.

 

[Los Angeles]

Originally Posted by HK Feet 27

Originally Posted by bright nikes

For all my folks in Socal, check out: Magic Wok, Artesia.

Great eats for CHEAP

The LA Times wrote an article about this particular restaurant a month ago.  I will have to venture to Artesia one of these days and have a taste for myself.

Wow, its like that? Its sort of like a hole-in-the-wall joint, I've been going there for 10-15 years.I live maybe 25-30mins away and I wouldn't hesitate to drive if I wanted the realest Filipino food.Dishes range from $4-7 - I mean nice entree servings, great prices.

 

[frink85]

Originally Posted by bright nikes

Originally Posted by HK Feet 27

Originally Posted by bright nikes

For all my folks in Socal, check out: Magic Wok, Artesia.

Great eats for CHEAP

The LA Times wrote an article about this particular restaurant a month ago.  I will have to venture to Artesia one of these days and have a taste for myself.

Wow, its like that? Its sort of like a hole-in-the-wall joint, I've been going there for 10-15 years.I live maybe 25-30mins away and I wouldn't hesitate to drive if I wanted the realest Filipino food.Dishes range from $4-7 - I mean nice entree servings, great prices.

ive heard its pretty well known for its crispy pata. put it this way, i went with my dad to pick up some on a random wednesday night, and we had a 20 minute wait, and we called in ahead.

on topic: ive had this discussion a lot with a friend lately (who's not filipino) and he thinks it's cause we don't have a signature dish like pho, sushi, orange chicken, curry, korean bbq etc. to draw in a crowd. I think it's that plus filipinos are relatively new (1970's-80's) in large numbers to the country and we're not mainstream yet. The article i posted said it better.

 

[wxyzfactor]

It is because of ethnocentrism and lack of hype by chefs who are mostly white.  A lot of ethnic food are influenced by other cultures is universal.  Noodles are in many cultures like Italian and Asian cultures.  Tortillas are universal as well, its called Naan in India but each is adjusted to the local flavor. 

Thats' why I don't buy the excuse the Filipino food is always influenced by some other food and is not "original".  Then what about Latin American Tortillas and Indian Naan?  Asian noodles and Italian spaghetti and German spatzle?  Russian dumplings (khinkali) and Chinese dumplings (potsickers) and Japanese dumplings (gyoza) and Jewish dumpling (matzoh ball) soup?  How about Latin American empanadas and Jamaican meat patties? 

Anyways, chefs who are mostly white always hype up French, Italian, Japanese, and Chinese as "mainstream" but you never really hype up any other ethnic cuisine.  I've had French food and it was good but I never understood why French food is the end all, be all of all cuisines and why it was considered the best.  It just has a nice presentable appearance that's all. 

I'm Filipino but I've eaten a lot of ethnic cuisines to figure out its just hype my the media and chefs in the media that make it popular.  I've had Thai, Vietnamese, Korean, Indian, Afghani, Mexican, Salvadoran, Jamaican, Ethiopian, Nigerian and etc. to know that each ethnic groups' food is basically some of kind of meat, vegetable. or fruit adjusted to the flavor and tastes of the particular ethnic group it is designed for. 

Its just people's preference's of food and the flavors they grew up with that becomes the basis of what flavors they prefer.

Filipino food (and other ethnic food) is not popular because of lack of hype and peoples prejudice's towards it.  Even grown adults say childish things like "Ewww" or "Nasty" to food they are unfamiliar with that doesn't taste good to them or food that they judge only by its appearance (but don't even taste).