 My favorite meal was the adobo chicken thighs. Oh David you you got three servings. Ah you're a big boy. People always seem to ask this question year after year why are Filipino people so popular but the food isn't. Today Andrew we are analyzing an article by the Gothamist asking why isn't Filipino food more popular in America. It's been endorsed by Anthony Bourdain Andrew Simmerman but it seems like it still hasn't turned a corner in terms of like cuisine popularity now Andrew why would two Chinese Americans be asking this question. All right yeah because also it's actually part of our channel to explore culture you know that's what we always do. We grew up around a lot of Filipino friends. We had Filipino food growing up. I've probably eaten at what maybe 30 different Filipino restaurants in our life so I'm not a Filipino food expert. However I am curious and we do want to help in give any sort of type of suggestions that we can to maybe help make Filipino food more popular or help spark some minds. I don't know. I actually think that there will be a major fast casual Filipino chain anywhere from like 20 to 100 fast casual stores that opens up within the next five years. I have my recommendations. Why do I know? I don't really know but you know I just thought I'd give my recommendations. I just took a look at the article. Andrew when I was in college my favorite meal in the entire UW experience was the adobo chicken thighs at by George cafe. Oh David you're coming back for the adobo. I see you got three servings. You're a big boy. That's pretty funny. I was also going to say that Jollabies is one of my absolute favorite fast food chains in the world and they're mostly cooking American food. They only have a few Filipino dishes on the menu but still Filipino and Max's restaurant is one of my favorite if not my favorite mid-end fast food chain in the world. Dude I mean garlic rice is a better version of rice. Arroz con pollo. Arroz caldo. Arroz caldo is a better kanji. Okay. Lumpia is a better egg roll. I mean I think there are Filipino dishes that clearly shine above the rest. And not only that they got their own dishes too Andrew. Sinigang, halo halo lechon. There's so many different things and you know what the interesting thing about the Philippines is Andrew? It's this mixture of like the original people which kind of has some in commonality with Indonesia. There's a lot of influence from Spain. There's a lot of influence in the cuisine from China as well as the Pacific Islands and it's this crazy mix of those things and different islands might even have like a different ratio distribution so everybody's got their own recipes for cooking dishes but I guess that's one of the complexities about Filipino food is there's not a standardized way to even cook like chicken adobo. All right so real quick I'm going to go through some of the reasons that people have listed on why Filipino food is not as popular as it could be and some of these are pulled off the internet. Some of these are coming from Filipino chefs and restaurant owners themselves so I didn't make these all up right. Number one Andrew it doesn't fall into the decadent high-class vibe like French or Japanese but it also doesn't seem like a everyday lunch fuel up power food. Shout out to Mighty Bulls in New York City that is trying to make Filipino influence food a bull and power food. But I mean I think a lot of cuisine suffer from this like Mexican food really struggle to break those upper echelons. Even Chinese food in America only the past 10 years really started breaking into that $3 sign $4 sign spot like people viewed it as like cheap I just need to eat sustenance food but it was tasty. Number two Andrew it is not particularly spicy for example like Sichuan food Thai food Korean food but it's not particularly fresh with the leaves like viet or Thai food I guess it's existing in the middle zone. Actually I would mostly compare it in temperature and texture Andrew to some deeper cut Cantonese dishes. Yeah I do think Filipinos could even create more like Filipino salads because I know like viet and Thai food are essentially like half of those dishes are like eating salads. Number three Andrew this is not my words we just pulled this off subreddit and you know quoting some chefs it doesn't look particularly good on the outside just due to the stews and sort of like the visual presentation I don't necessarily agree with this but I read this point a lot on different subreddits and quarries. All right the next point is that Filipino food is oftentimes seen as a very homestyle food so your lola will make it better than the restaurant and you know if you grow up with your lola's food and her way of cooking then obviously you're going to prefer that and that's going to deter you from you know paying more at a Filipino restaurant so that's what I've heard from some restaurant owners. And the next point was just that it's a global marketing issue Andrew here is a global chart viewing like every country viewing everybody else's food and this is just like people's perception this is not the reality of what's tasty or not because for example Peruvian's way low on there Filipino's way low on there Argentinian Caribbean is low on there and those all got some absolute 10 out of 10 bangers. Just think about it this way there are 272 million Indonesians worldwide Indonesian food is considered very good and it's still not that popular in America and it has really yet to break through so I mean you know it happens to other tasty cuisines too. And not only that I think that a lot of like cuisines in America they have different levels of penetration for example in New York Mexican food recently had a huge resurgence or not resurgence but a huge just renaissance in 10 years but it's mostly tacos for example in LA in Portland Andrew they love Thai boat noodles in New York they love Pad Thai and there's so many Thai restaurants opening in New York City but they're not on Thai boat noodles because of the use of the pigs blood you know I don't even think a lot of people in New York eat pork for a variety of reasons. Yeah so let's move on to some suggestions we did like a little quick brainstorm on like what might help Filipino food reach that that next level I mean these are just things we're coming up with let us know if you like any of the ideas. I'm saying that we are experts but I'm just saying guys if you guys open up a fast casual chain serving adobo and lumpia let me take a look at the investor deck after these recommendations. You can't go wrong with chicken and rice man you can't go wrong. Number one Andrew that leads us to our first point recommendation I guess is focus on the universally loved dishes I know chefs they get attached to the creativity and the deep cut stuff that their great grandma made or their grandma made but you don't even Chinese food we got to recognize Andrew for Cantonese food even though it's so beloved people just like one ton soup and they just like the shield yoke you know the roast meats over rice which is actually very similar to lechon. Yeah I mean I would say like like we said focus on adobo chicken and lumpia I mean I feel like that there's so many dishes that Filipinos do have that if you just focus on maybe like the top six or seven and and kind of like blowing those up I think there's a chance. You know for me I had to give up Andrew on Tsingpukukai like the steam chicken mushroom dish getting big and like huangmenji the dish from Jinan you know the chicken stew like I can't even get other Chinese people to try it. Number two Andrew focus on branding the background processes as well as you know business systems and production systems. Number three Andrew focus on some small recipe tweaks that don't jeopardize the original soul of the recipe and also the Latino market. So for example Andrew some of the dishes I'm not telling people what to do could use less sukkha which is the Filipino vinegar. I like synagogue a lot but I'm just saying for like widespread consumption that like sour meat thing it could be throw some people off. Yeah I mean there's definitely a lot of crossover with Latino food where you have like the calamansi and then you might want to squeeze that on top of other things. I mean I think that there's just little tweaks and tricks to even make it appeal to even more of the Latino market which is probably predisposed to a lot of the flavors in Filipino food because it is partially says on right yeah. Number four Andrew I do not think that Filipino food needs to go through the same arc that Chinese food had where it was like you know driven by this community that community you can get cabbage filled community Chinese food in the white things and you get hood Chinese food with the bulletproof glass and like this and this I actually don't think it's going to need to go through the same arc. I think if people focus on a universal branding they can serve mostly lumpia, garlic rice, chicken adobo, halo halo and maybe some pandasal bread and that could be a chain that can have like 50 to 200 restaurants around America but they'd have to really brand it correctly where you could grab the Filipino market Filipino Americans which is a pretty huge demographic only second to Chinese Americans but also grab a wide range of outside people as well to supplement the income. Yo I've actually had some really good Filipino cooked tacos before and I feel like Filipinos one thing that they're really really good at if not if it's not the traditional dishes that really gain traction I think it's Filipino chefs putting their twist on a lot of different types of food such as fried chicken or such as tacos or such as Chinese food and I think it's good yeah it has really as a charm. I think take a look at El Pollo Locos arc torches tacos there's so many different chains of like ethnicities and of course yes they did have to Americanize or Westernize to gain a certain thing but look a look at what Panda Express did. Who's gonna be the Filipino Panda Express like I want to give it to Jolly Bees but Jolly Bees doesn't serve enough traditional Filipino dishes so you probably can't give them that award but yo who's gonna be the Filipino American Panda Express who's gonna do it who's gonna do it. Let us know in the comment section below what is your favorite Filipino dish what is your favorite Filipino restaurant in your city and what you would do to popularize Filipino cuisine in America because it deserves it because it's got some absolute bangers. All right everybody thank you so much for watching the hot pot boys you know us man we'll talk about everything including food so uh thank you so much for watching hit that like button click subscribe turn on your notifications and leave your comment down below until next time we out. Peace.