There was a Washington Post article recently talking about the advent of Filipino food becoming a thing in the Washington, DC area. It's always a little bit surreal thinking of the food that you grew up with as being a thing. To me, it seemed like it was always around but it existed in little mom and pop shops where the cooking was closer to home made than professional. That's not a bad thing. The drawback in that is that you'll never be satisfied with anything but your mother's homemade cooking.
To me, in order for Filipino food to be successful as a restaurant, it had to be less homey, feel somewhat familiar, but also feel a little like maybe it wasn't made by your mother since why would you want to eat any other type of Filipino food? The sense that Filipino cuisine was starting to become mainstream started for me at places like Maharlika and Talde. Not only did they make Filipino food in an "elevated" way but they also made it cool. This wave now seems like it's moving to DC. I wasn't too swept up but my parents were curious enough to jump in. We did Cathal Armstrong's tasting menu at Restaurant Eve and maybe that's my next article. But, the next place we tried was Purple Patch mainly because it's wasn't full out Filipino and offered other choices. Heck, I just liked there was a burger on the menu.
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