Thursday, September 23, 2010
Vegan Filipino Cuisine Comes to Downtown Oakland
Food Madeleine Bair — Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 2:21 PM
There’s a good reason you don’t see vegetarians flock to Filipino joints as they do Indian, Thai, and other ethnic restaurants. If there’s no whole roast pig in the window to scare them away, a menu of sausages, cured beef, pork belly, and crispy pig legs usually does the trick. The cuisine is not only heavy on the meat, but heavy period, contributing to higher rates of obesity and heart disease in the Philippines than in other Asian countries.
Jay-Ar Isagani Pugao was a teenager when he learned this firsthand. His mom had a heart attack and had to eliminate all that red meat and cholesterol from her diet to stay alive. To help her out, “I went vegetarian, so she didn’t have to worry about cooking a healthy meal for herself and another dish for the rest of us.” Together, they experimented with cooking dishes like adobo, lumpia, and apritada without all the unhealthy stuff.
It was the first of many unexpected events in the course of Pugao’s life that have added up to the downtown Oakland restaurant he plans to open next week, No Worries Filipino Vegan Cuisine.
- Jay-Ar Isagani Pugao
The second soon followed, when Pugao wrote a business proposal for a vegetarian Filipino catering service for an economics course at Oakland High School. Unbeknownst to him, the teacher submitted the class projects for real funding, and his won a $1,500 grant to get the idea off the ground.
Since then, Pugao has hustled trays of meatless lumpia and ginger and black bean soy fish to local parties and events, all while holding down a full-time job. Taste, not talk, is how he wins over fans of a cuisine many see as a contradiction in terms. “Yes, it’s 100-percent vegan,” Pugao said, “but we focus on the fact that it’s Filipino rather than vegetarian.”
For him, the essence of Filipino cuisine lays not in the meats, but in the sauces and method of preparation. Adobo, for example, is a popular meat dish, “but what makes it Filipino is the soy sauce, vinegar, bay leaves, garlic, salt, and pepper.” Pugao prepares first, then adds the soy substitute.
While catering the Oakland Indie Awards last year, he was approached with the idea of opening a restaurant at a new Jack London Square development. The suggestion motivated him to apply for small business loans and start looking for investors. Though he wound up at a different location, his placement near the corner of Franklin and 14th streets is, as he says, “a hot spot” — near offices for a lunch crowd and The Layover across the street at night.
Just as becoming vegetarian was a gesture on behalf of his mom, 31-year-old Pugao says community is central to his business philosophy. He sources meat substitutes from an Oakland supplier and much of his produce from farmers' markets, though he is working on a collaboration with Filipino farmers in Stockton. “I understand what it’s going to take to bring my community in. The food’s got to be good, and it’s got to be affordable.”
Check the web site for updates on the opening, or just stop by at 1442 Franklin Street in downtown Oakland.
Comments (13)
Showing 1-13 of 13
Just came from No Worries...Amazing! I'm not a vegetarian and as a Pinoy, I had my doubts. The execution was deliciously innovative yet held the familiar taste of home cooking. Typical low office lunch prices for fresh and healthy food? I must be dreaming!
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i cant wait to try another dish! so many varieties to choose from....another great time with the pugao brothers...
Jonathan S.
Hi folks, check the website, we've updated the menu page. we have the lunch, dinner, and catering menu added on. Thanks for all your support!!!
www.filipinoveganfood.com
www.filipinovegetarianfood.com
Thanks again,
From your No Worries Cuisine family
i'm Filipino and was a vegan for 7 years. i think if you actually look at the diet of the various Filipino food traditions over the last 200 or 400 years, most Filipinos have not had a diet high in meat and white rice. the high yield rices have been a nutritional disaster of the 20th century and a way for Manila and the corporate world to undermine indigenous farming techniques. meanwhile, Filipinos have historically used every edible part of an animal before killing more which, if Filipinos abroad and upper class Filipinos returned to this practice together with eating native rice varieties or roots for starch, would go a long way to eliminate most of these industrial-ag related health problems. Filipinos have typically eaten smaller, more abundant fish, than larger ones that are now in decline around the world -- whale and whale shark hunting did not appear until after the Euro-American whaling trade surfaced in the 1840s.
If people adopted a more traditional Filipino diet, they wouldn't have most of these health problems, although diabetes is a more complex intergenerational problem... Shintani's diet of traditional Hawaiian diet for Native Hawaiians seemed to have positively affected problems of diabetes as well.
If you are filipino and a vegan or vegetarian, this is a definite blessing to have around.. I used to be vegan for 5 1/2 years and but I still crave vegetarian food often specially now that I am pregnant, for a few months all I wanted was filipino vegetarian food. It could not find any filipino restaurant that was all veggie, but I knew of No Worries catering at the time and it was great!!! Love love the food.... You know that it's healthy, tasty and affordable... Thanks No Worries for feeding me good food when I needed it.. = ) Can't wait for the restaurant to open.
I'm an omnivore and I'll have a vegan meal from time to time but $49.99 for lugao for 8 - 10 people? Really??? It's just rice porridge! The web site's menu seems to be advertising catering. What are the price points for the restaurant? No use in going there unless you have 8 - 10 people on hand, otherwise.
I have been a fan for a long time. Those of us that want to support LOCAL. Now this, is LOCAL. Can't wait!!
It's ALL delicious! I've had this food at several events, and loved all of it. Filipino flavors without all the guilt -- updated and yummy! Thanks, Jay-ar!
Baylan Megino
www.WhiteLightAssociates.com
Very little is know about Ilocano cuisine, from the northern region of the Philippines. This is healthy fare, mostly boiled, grilled or steamed veggies with seafood. I know of only one such restaurant (Kambingan) and that is in Waipahu, (Oahu) in Hawaii.
I have heard such amazing things about jay-ar and his delicious cuisine. Can't wait for another veggie spot to open up in The Town! Yeah!
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