Chef Alvin Cailan walked into the bar looking very much like his namesake Los Angeles restaurant, AMBOY. Wearing a black New York Yankees cap, white tee, and bandana – which goes contrary to one of the first things we talk about.
“People ask me if I’m more from Los Angeles, or more of a New Yorker, I always say first and foremost, I’m Filipino.”
I asked him how his Tagalog was and he quipped, “Mas magaling pag lasing. I can get by, let’s put it that way. I feel like I can get by in the Philippines pretty well and even better when I’m drunk. Which is an even more useful tool in this city. I grew up in Los Angeles, but I didn’t start speaking English until I was around 5 years old. When my mom would have friends over, she would say, ‘Be careful what you say in front of Alvin — because he understands everything in Tagalog.’”
Chef Alvin is arguably one of the most high-profile leaders of the growing Filipino-American food movement. He first came onto the scene when he opened his wildly successful food truck EggSlut in Los Angeles. There are now brick and mortar EggSlut locations in LA, Las Vegas, Singapore, Korea, Japan and the United Kingdom. He has since gone to explore more of his Filipino heritage in his restaurant Amboy Quality Meats & Delicious Burgers as well as his cookbook, Amboy: Recipes from the Filipino-American Dream. Alvin even hosts the burger-centric serial The Burger Show on the popular First We Feast YouTube Channel.
Right now, Chef Alvin is here in Manila filming a series of videos in collaboration with Philippine Airlines and the Department of Tourism. Their idea is to highlight the more elevated restaurants and chefs in the city to place the Philippines on every food lovers’ list of destinations to visit.
Over a couple of drinks, I asked him about the sudden rise of Filipino food in the international scene.
“I think Filipino food is its own genre. They don’t know it by dish, they know it by chef or concept. Americans know Filipino food through the restaurants as opposed to particular dishes.”
GRID: But is it integrated into American culture? Do people say, “let’s go out for Filipino!” the same way they do with Chinese food or other Asian cuisine?
CHEF ALVIN CAILAN: You would be surprised.
A great example is Lasita in L.A. They do a roasted porchetta lechon and a great inasal chicken too. They also just won this year as one of the top restaurants from Food & Wine Magazine. The last time I was there, I’d see tables filled with White, Latino, Black, Asian and then Filipino people. It's crazy to see. You go to my restaurant, AMBOY, order a silog early in the morning, and you’d be seated next to a black security guard who just got off his shift and a Mexican guy who works for the water and power company — just an eclectic mix of people.
These days in America, we are definitely a part of the conversation on top international cuisines since around 2014.
GRID: I’ll probably get killed for saying this, but I lived in the U.S. and Europe and I prefer the Italian American food of San Francisco or New York over the food I tried in Italy. How has American culture influenced Filipino food?
CHEF ALVIN: Well that’s what AMBOY is. I’m a first generation Filipino American, I grew up in the 70s and 80s in Los Angeles. We grew up with adobo, but it was not made with Silver Swan soy sauce, it was made with Kikkoman. We didn’t have pandesal, we had King's Hawaiian Rolls. We had Vienna sausage, Hormel corned beef—all the Balikbayan specials people would bring back to the states. That’s the Filipino food we grew up eating there.
Then suddenly, we had Filipino food being imported into Asian markets in the states. So, my younger brother’s concept of Filipino food is very different from mine because he’s 10 years younger than me. So, I have a very specific knowledge of Filipino food, because of the dishes my Lola would make for us with the ingredients that were available in the US in the 80s.
That influence is what I call AMBOY, because it was what we had. It was Filipino food but not Filipino food that people here may be used to. I grew up eating Adobo with Kikkoman, and when I finally had it with Silver Swan, it tasted amazing! Now, I can’t eat it any other way. Chefs are now taking those traditional recipes and evolving them.
First, when you are a Filipino chef in the Philippines, whatever you make is Filipino food.
At our restaurant for example, we are using Cheshire-smoked Silver Swan soy sauce. We use hickory chips to add even more depth of flavor to the Silver Swan. So now, we can have a smoked adobong manok or the way I do my liempo is I will boil it first, then crisp in the oven whole, then portion it in slices and grill it. So, you have the best of both worlds. You have the crispiness of the skin, but you also have the char of the grill. It’s like the ultimate liempo.
We also have the benefit of much more advanced equipment. We have wok burners with very high BTUs (British Thermal Unit), we have a 250 gallon Texas propane smoker. So, I'll smoke whole pork bellies and pork shoulders and turn it into an adobo somehow.
When I make Texas-style BBQ brisket, I'll spray it with Knorr sampaloc packets. It gives it a nice tangy, sinigang flavor. So that’s kind of the twist. It has evolved. Filipino cuisine has become this amalgamation of how we see food as Filipino-Americans.
GRID: With the work you’re doing here now, how do you promote high end or elevated Filipino cuisine without losing its heritage?
CHEF ALVIN: First, when you are a Filipino chef in the Philippines, whatever you make is Filipino food.
What I’m doing with the Philippine Airlines and the Department of Tourism is that we’re not really focusing on traditional recipes, we are talking more about modern, creative dishes that are being done by local Filipino chefs in a fine dining setting.
The reason I wanted to explore that angle is because the Philippines is an amazing place and if you ask anyone that is not Filipino what they know about the Philippines, it's always going to be balut, lumpia and pancit. Talk about destinations and it’s always going to be Palawan or Boracay. People never talk about a 5-star chef in a restaurant in BGC simply because they don’t know about it. So, that's exactly the angle I wanted to show on this trip.
I wanted to show what people are eating in Metro Manila in 2022. For example, places like Wildflour Italian or Wagyu Studio are not necessarily doing Filipino food but Filipinos are eating it in the Philippines and others might not expect this type of cuisine here.
For the longest time, haute cuisine or high cuisine in Manila was working in a hotel. Working for a foreign chef. These days, it’s the chefs that left, learned, and came back; that’s what makes our food awesome.
I had an A5 Wagyu bulalo at Wagyu studio. Bulalo is such a noble dish and they make it with such exuberant ingredients, so it’s refreshing—because how many bulalos can you eat until it’s no longer inspiring? This was inspiring to me. It shows what can still be done with these traditional dishes.
Then you have restaurants like Wildflour Italian or A Mano. They have pizza now where you can close your eyes and you wouldn’t believe that you’re eating dough that’s this delicious in the Philippines. No one knows that. And that’s what we want to show off.
We also want to spotlight the award-winning chefs we have here such as Margarita Fores who’s always on the Pellegrino list, Jordy Navarra over at Toyo Eatery, and Josh Boutwood doing really cool and innovative things. If I can show that to the rest of the world, then hopefully we can make the Philippines part of the culinary conversation.
GRID: Why do you think that people don’t know about these restaurants?
ALVIN: For the longest time, haute cuisine or high cuisine in Manila was working in a hotel. Working for a foreign chef. These days, it’s the chefs that left, learned, and came back; that’s what makes our food awesome. They have the perspective of eating humble dishes while growing up. And they are then able to watch how top chefs can elevate these proteins and vegetables. They bring that back here and we go “Oh, that’s how it’s supposed to taste.”
Like with bistek tagalog, one of my favorite dishes in the whole world. When you’re a kid you might’ve hated it because the meat was so dry and tough. Now, we are using the sous vide method on the meat and you can actually taste the beef flavor with the soy sauce and the onions. And then you realize, this is a top tier dish. This is a dish I crave. That’s the perspective we get when we leave and come back.
Even with dishes like longganisa or tapa, if you do it with technique and proper care, the dish is competitive with the rest of the world. People initially think Filipino food is only oily or salty. With experience and training we are able to push the envelope and take it to a different level.
In Los Angeles, growing up, lechon was more of a business instead of a dish. There was this necessity for having lechon for birthday parties or celebrations but there was not necessarily any care for it. This one guy was doing it in his backyard in California. It wasn’t anything special. It was just that we needed to have a lechon.
We are getting to that point with Filipino cuisine. It’s not just sustenance, it’s becoming an art form. It’s becoming a craft.
But now you have guys like Lord Maynard Llera from Kuya Lord, Los Angeles who does a Cebuano-style Lechon over red oak chips; it’s smoked first and then crisped Filipino style, where the skin is still like glass. It’s not bubbly or crispy. You try that and you’re like, “Holy crap, that’s delicious.” You realize that that’s what it’s supposed to taste like. 35 years later in America we are finally tasting what lechon is supposed to taste like instead of just out of necessity.
Inasal is a huge thing in the U.S. right now. In LA, Lasita is using a Japanese Konro grill, a brick grill made for Yakitori, and Binchotan charcoal. The sear gets the skin at its peak crispiness. Using annatto flavored schmaltz to baste the chicken and lemongrass to brush it on... it's life changing. Inasal has almost become a high-level dish and the juxtaposition is crazy. You are taking what street food is and turning it into a fine dining dish.
For kakanin, you have chef Charles Olalia in Dallas. His kakanin are like French-influenced sticky rice dishes. Imagine using traditional French technique to make a crème caramel and mixing that into perfectly cooked rice out of a Rational, which is like a 40,000 dollar oven. And out of that, you are making sticky rice with perfect consistency. Mix that with the perfect crème caramel or biko and you just go, “What the hell am I eating!”
That’s where we are right now. You have the best chefs in the world cooking Filipino.
GRID: What do you think is so special about Filipino cuisine?
CHEF ALVIN: When I went here in 2018, I ate in Toyo Eatery for the first time and I literally cried because this guy came out with a dish while singing “Bahay Kubo.” I had not heard that lullaby in like 25 years, I didn't even know I repressed that memory, but my mom used to sing that to me when I was a kid. It just reminded me of a better time. It brought back so many memories.
If Filipino chefs can hit that target in your mind, something special is happening there. This is what makes other countries' cuisine so good. Like with the Hainanese chicken: they’ve innovated the dish a hundred thousand ways to make that one chicken and rice dish taste amazing. We are getting to that point with Filipino cuisine. It’s not just sustenance, it’s becoming an art form. It’s becoming a craft.
I’ll be wrapping up my trip in a restaurant where I will be meeting with young chefs who don’t own restaurants yet. They have been chosen to be the future trendsetters. So, I will be able to see the next generation of those guys. There are people working in Toyo right now who will one day have their own restaurant. There is a lot more to this trip. It’s not just a flash in the pan. There are legs to this.
For me to be a part of that movement is amazing. I get to talk to people abroad who have very discerning palates and even snobbish palates and show them what is happening here in the Philippines.
We're going to bring them here and we're going to knock their socks off.
--
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
