Nicole Ponseca Is Bringing Filipino Food To Miami

Nicole Ponseca will be bringing kamayan-style dinners, a communal meal, shared intimately with … [+] family and friends, spread over banana leaves– to Miami
Nicole Ponseca
I first met Nicole Ponseca in November 2016 in Manila. The New York-based Filipino-American restaurateurfounder and CEO of Jeepney and Maharlika, credited for crossing Filipino food over to the mainstreamwas in town to speak at a conference organized by the Center for Culinary Arts-Manila (CCA), in honor of their 20th anniversary.
There, Nicole touched on the million-dollar question of why it has taken Filipino cuisine so long to take off, compared to its Asian counterparts. She attributed one of the key reasons to the Filipino hiya culturethe sense of propriety, shame or shyness. We are the only food culture that tricks people to eat our food, she shared. We call dinuguan [pork blood stew] chocolate meat. The French dont do that. They dont call boudin noir chocolate sausage; neither do the Spanish with morcilla. Can we please stop putting euphemisms on our food?
Fast forward to 2020. Filipino cuisine has since gained a lot of traction in the United States. (And wed rather not call it a trend, thank you very much.) Nicole herself has continuously been flying the Philippine flag high. In 2018, she published a cookbook, I Am A Filipino: And This Is How We Cook, a compendium of her observations and recipes while traveling through the Philippines. It was a finalist for the James Beard Foundations International Cookbook of the Year 2019, and was named a Best Cookbook by The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and Los Angeles Times. Shortly after the start of the pandemic, she created Tita Babys Kita Kits Meal kits to respond to the need of staying home, which The New Yorker described as one of the the smartest and most gratifying pandemic projects. Now, she is opening her first restaurant outside of New Yorkin Miami. 
Filipino-American Nicole Ponseca is the founder and CEO of Jeepney Filipino Gastropub and Maharlika … [+] Catering, and a James Beard finalist for her cookbook, “I Am A Filipino: This is How We Cook,” under the international books category
Nicole Ponseca
Parts of Florida have significant Filipino populations (Jacksonville, Pensacola and Orlando to name a few) which have birthed Filipino restaurants in the area. In Miami, while Filipino-inspired dishes are present in a few restaurants, and there are a couple of turo-turo (point-point) homestyle eateries, a chef-driven 100% Filipino restaurant is not yet in existence.
Until mid-December 2020, at least, when Nicole will be bringing in her take on Filipino foodwhich she describes as thoughtful and progressive via the opening of her Jeepney and Tita Babys concepts in Wynwood at the Asian food hall, 1-800-Lucky. I never would have thought I would be doing a project at this timethis is the ultimate in pivots, shares Nicole, who will soon be taking up residency in Miami. It felt very natural. I grew up in San Diego, and it felt like a second home. And not only that, Filipinos are Latino-Asians, and its so genius we would be at 1-800-Lucky, because its an Asian concept in a Latino town, and now we get to mix both worlds in what is historically, a fusion people and a fusion culture.
1-800-Lucky in Wynwood is Miami’s first Asian-themed food hall with seven vendors, a karaoke bar, … [+] and a DJ spinning on a nightly basis
1-800-Lucky
1-800-Luckys managing director Gaby Chiriboga, originally from Ecuador, previously worked at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, and often traveled to the Philippines. A mutual friend put her in touch with Nicole and she says it was a home run since day one. The flavors of Filipino food fit so perfectly with Latin culture, and the warmth and energy are so similar, Gaby shares. While she acknowledges that the market may not yet be as exposed to Filipino cuisine as to its Asian counterparts, she is confident it will feel more familiar to guests than many anticipated.
We speak to Nicole to learn more about what to expect in Miami:
Can you share more about your Miami concepts with us?
I have two booths right next to each other at 1-800-Lucky. Savory items will be coming out of Jeepney. We will be having three types of sisig: [chopped] pork, chicken and a vegetarian/ vegan option with jackfruit. [Guests] can have them as skewers, and we will also be serving the ubiquitouswhich is with garlic rice and fried egg, [silog]. I also will be introducing something that I call Sister-In-Law Egg. Its a sous-vide egg thats been deep fried so it has all the hard sear and the crispy edge that we love in a silog but inside will be a really yummy, runny yolk.
In January, we will be starting brunch. I will be doing Bibingka Benedicts. Instead of English muffins, we will be doing bibingka [coconut rice cake], poached eggs and calamansi hollandaise, with either Spam, sisig or pulled chicken. Then Ill have different sauces: adobo, ginataan [cooked with coconut milk] and my own banana ketchup.
Silog, a classic Filipino breakfast dish, named after its two key ingredients: sinangag (garlic … [+] fried rice) and itlog (egg). Nicole’s take is a “Sister in Law” egg– sous vide and fried– garlic rice, scallion oil, milk soaked garlic chips, shallots, beet and green mango atchara
Duyen Ha/ Nicole Ponseca
Popular Filipino dessert halo-halo, which translates to “mix-miix,” will also be available at Tita … [+] Baby’s
Nicole Ponseca
I saw on your Instagram youve been serving Muslim Mindanao dishes in New York. Will you be serving them in Miami as well?
I am going to be doing Filipino Food Fridays, and we will be offering a chefs table with kamayan [a communal-style Filipino feast], and it will have rotating menus. Im really looking to do a seafood royale like a Vietnamese crab boil in New Orleans, and I want to do a Filipino equivalent in Miami. So we are going to introduce kamayan in seafood, and with rotating menus, so Ill absolutely be doing Mindanao food but only on Fridays and by reservations only.
For people who are worried about Covid-19, what safety measures you will ensure for this, especially since kamayan is all about eating with the hands?
What we do in New York is that everyone who sits down at the table togetherthey fill out a form that asks about their lifestyle, who theyve been around. have they been exhibiting any symptoms? We also do a temperature check. Some people dont eat with the hands, and its ultimately, an experience of the platingthe banana leaves, the garlic rice and all the food laid down; they use a spoon and fork, or wear gloves. We leave it up to the table, since they know each other. Since its a chefs table and by reservations only, there are no strangers sitting at that table or close to them. And the tables at 1-800-Lucky are pretty much spaced apart.
Housed in a 10,000 sq. ft. space, 1-800-Lucky offers ample outdoor dining with tables spaced apart
1-800-Lucky
As you know, Filipino food is quite a novelty still in Miami, and yours is going to be some peoples first. How do you plan to introduce it, especially to people who have never had Filipino food before?
Fortunately, thats been my role in New York for the last 20 years. Im very sensitive to how the food gets introduced. I want people to know it like we would know it in our homes, which would be the four corners of acid and funk, and a tad bit of sweetness and that kind of ocean-umami that we get.
I think that Miami is continuing to show itself as a food destination, and I think that theres a lot of food enthusiasts who will be gravitating towards this food out of curiosity and stay because they love it. And for a lot of Miamians, its going to be quite familiar. If not in wordshow we call it from kaldereta to chicharron to lechon/ lechonita if they dont understand or recognize it from the words, theyre going to recognize it from the ingredients and the flavors.
In some ways, its food theyve already grown up with, with the addition of maybe patis, which is a fish sauce. Different swap-outs easily become Filipino food. Whereas in a Latino household, they may use sazon or adobo seasoning, we might use patis. Or where they may use oregano, we may use more cilantro. I think theyre really going to have fun with this food and I almost feel like theyre going to be at home with us. And we have the same kind of spirit, we have a similar soul, so its going to be soul food for them, too.
Nicole points out the similarities between Filipino and Latin culture, like the lechonita/ lechon, … [+] which she serves as a sandwich, not unlike the Cubano, “but with crispy skin. mustard, mayo, pickles, chilies optional”
Nicole Ponseca
Jeepney and Tita Babys Miami will debut mid-December 2020 at 1-800-Lucky, 143 NW 23rd Street, Miami, Floridaread more