Its been almost a week since I returned from the Philippines and my mind is still full of the flavours experienced there: ripe mangoes, tender buko (young coconut), crispy pork. Geneva used to have a Filipino restaurant back in the day, but it no longer exists. I always thought opening a new one could work here given that Genevans love to travel and try new things and would certainly give it a shot. But since my project is not to open something here but there, I thought a Filipino pop-up restaurant would be fun. 

People often ask what Filipino food is like and it's difficult to answer because it doesn't really resemble any other cuisine that I know. Granted, it has similar ingredients to some of its neighbours, like soy, tamarind, vinegar, garlic. It also has the influence of Spain, with the seafood rices, roasted porks, leche flans. In any case, yesterday I decided to make a Filipino lunch for my daughter and my boyfriend's nephew and made barbecued pork sticks, which has a very distinctive flavour and is ubiquitous no matter where you go, and adobong kangkong, which is an aquatic green that I love, stewed in the classic adobo marinade of soy, vinegar and garlic. All the flavours are very punchy and in your face, which is nice in this dreary month of February where everything is just grey and frozen and dying to come to life (no pun intended). 

The pork sticks didn't quite have the same flavour as they did back home, but we all wolfed them down. I'll have to test a couple more recipes. The kangkong greens, on the other hand, tasted of home. I am thinking of including them in my Filipino pop-up menu….