Exploring Filipino Kitchens

On this episode we chat with Chef Nuit, Jeff, and Joel Regular, co-owners of a restaurant called Makilala in downtown Toronto. We learn about their journey to building Sukhothai, Pai, Kiin, and their other Thai restaurants - truly some of the best in the city - and we talk about how Makilala has become a quintessential part of the family. This year, Makilala landed in Toronto Life’s Best New Restaurants List, inviting more people than ever to the Filipino table.

On this episode, we visit the Yangil valley in central Luzon’s Zambales province, where a documentary called “The Foresters: A Story of Climate Keepers” follows an indigenous Aeta community and the challenges they face through a rapidly changing climate. It's also about how organizations such as MAD Travel have begun and continue to expand on massive reforestation and agri-tourism projects together with the local community. To date, over 130,000 trees have been planted in the valley!

On this episode we chat with Bettina Makalintal, senior reporter with the national team at Eater, one of today’s best-known brands in the global food media space dedicated to all things food and dining. We chat about a range of topics on Filipino food and culture through a diasporic lens, so let’s get to it!

On this episode we chat with Abi Balingit, author of the cookbook Mayumu: Filipino American Desserts Remixed. It landed on the New York Times’ Best Cookbooks list in 2023, winning Abi an Emerging Voice award from the James Beard Foundation the next. I’m a huge fan!

On this episode we listen to the stories behind Istorya, a Las Vegas-based pop-up restaurant that aims to showcase the diversity of cuisines across the Philippines, interpreted by chefs in the diaspora. The menus at their dinners are crafted with care and symbolic of the team's own journeys to rediscovering the history and heritage of the Philippines through through food. And we got to collab on a dinner series about the Manila-Acapulco galleons this year - how amazing was that?