News

Oct 16, 2024

Chicago's Filipino food scene and the search for calamansi

Ube, the yam used to make strikingly purple desserts, is a traditional Filipino ingredient that has become ubiquitous in mainstream American grocery stores. The flavor has gotten so popular it can be

Ube, the yam used to make strikingly purple desserts, is a traditional Filipino ingredient that has become ubiquitous in mainstream American grocery stores. The flavor has gotten so popular it can be found outside of Filipino eateries, from bakeries and ice cream shops to the aisles of Trader Joe’s. But awareness and adoption of a bold and core Filipino ingredient, calamansi, has lagged behind, in part due to difficulties in finding fresh or even packaged versions of the citrus fruit.

The ping-pong-ball-sized green and orange fruit is the citrus of choice in Filipino cuisine. It can be used as a marinade, a finishing acid, a preserving agent or the base of a sweetened drink. Its unique floral, sweet and sour characteristics are a key flavor that cannot easily be substituted.

The supply chain issues around calamansi, also known as calamondin, are part of a broader challenge many Filipino restaurants in Chicago are facing in sourcing ingredients.

“I’ve been in this business for almost 20 years,” said Joseph Fontelera, chef and owner of Boonie’s Filipino Restaurant in North Center, which was added to the Michelin Bib Gourmand list in 2023. “Of everything that I’ve ever had to get a hold of, Filipino goods have been consistently the hardest to get a hold of.”

No other ingredient encapsulates the supply chain challenge better than calamansi.

“Calamansi is definitely the citrus in the Philippines,” Fontelera said in a text. “Hardly lime or lemon is used unless for a specific, non-Filipino purpose.” The chef said their sizzling sisig is probably their most well-known utilization of calamansi: The pork hash is finished with a freshly cracked egg and calamansi juice squeezed on top. Like many other restaurants, calamansi is also a core marination ingredient for Boonie’s proteins.

Other ingredients that can be difficult for restaurant owners to source in Chicago include Barako coffee, banana ketchup and Filipino soy sauce (toyo). Melvin Reyes, chef and owner of Mano Modern Cafe in West Town, named other products that are highly regulated, restricted or difficult to source, such as bagoong (shrimp paste), Magic Sarap seasoning or some brands of lechon sauce.

Part of this may be because Filipino foods are also underrepresented in the restaurant space. According to a 2023 Pew study, Filipino restaurants accounted for 1% of all Asian restaurants in the United States. Meanwhile, Filipinos accounted for 17% of all Asian Americans in the U.S., according to Pew.

The Filipino restaurant scene in Chicago has been growing in density and influence. The breakfast silogs at West Town’s Uncle Mike’s Place have been a staple for decades. Jennivee’s Bakery and Cafe has been selling beautiful ube pastries since 2017. But much attention has come to the Chicago Filipino scene post-pandemic. Some restaurateurs credit nationally-recognized Kasama, the Ukrainian Village restaurant by Tim Flores and Genie Kwon that serves creative pastries and tasting menus, which became the world’s first Michelin-starred Filipino restaurant in 2022.

Fontelera recalled the stress the food industry faced in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, describing how his peers came together to support each other. Now, he feels things have more or less returned to normal. He praised new businesses for taking risks and rejecting a scarcity mindset. “Our community is definitely expanding,” Fontelera said.

When Fontelera put together his business plan for Boonie’s in 2020, he counted the number of Filipino restaurants in Chicagoland at around 20. Since then, more Filipino restaurants have opened, including Mano Modern Cafe, Novel Pizza Cafe, Umaga Bakehouse and Bayan Ko Diner. Del Sur Bakery, which has been hosting pop-ups across the city, is planned for a 2025 opening, according to co-owner Francis Almeda. A Taste of the Philippines, which was previously a food stall in the French Market, got its own home in Jefferson Park earlier this year.

Kathy Vega Hardy, chef and owner of A Taste of the Philippines, said she prefers to use fresh calamansi, where possible. “Nothing tastes like fresh,” Hardy said.

ATOTP is a casual counter-service restaurant that features traditional and contemporary Filipino food. Hardy uses calamansi in various ways, including as a marinade for skewers, glazed on doughnut holes, and in a sparking calamansi drink.

Hardy recalled the importance of calamansi growing up in Manila; when the children were sick, her mother’s memorable home remedy was a half-calamansi squeezed straight into the aggrieved throat. Hardy is considering growing a calamansi tree of her own, simply to have better access.

According to several restaurateurs, the only produce section in Chicago that seems to stock fresh calamansi is Seafood City, the Filipino supermarket chain in Albany Park. Some restaurateurs and chefs use suppliers or wholesalers, but there’s sometimes not enough to go around.

“So right now, we’re facing huge supply chain issue,” Reyes said. “It’s nice to have Filipino restaurants booming, but now we’re all (pulling) from the same resources.” Reyes, who also owns Pinoy Fine Foods in Ohio, moved to Chicago last August to open Mano. He now constantly asks himself “Why is it so hard to find certain things in such a big city?”

There’s a mixture of influences in each dish at Mano, from a Pinoy chicken sandwich with calamansi ranch to ube lattes. One of their popular items is the Manila Palmer — a calamansi/iced tea combo. But the inconsistent sourcing causes issues with flavor profiles.

“We have to use four different calamansi,” said Reyes, referring to the processed products. “And it changes our recipe every time.” He described the range of flavors as having varying notes of rind, bitterness, tartness and pith. The price and profit margins can vary as well.

Reyes said they have regulars who order calamansi drinks and notice the difference when the cafe has to use less-preferred concentrates.

“We have a ton of drinks that use calamansi,” Reyes said. “We’re competing against our good friends. We’re all trying to source it against the (same) suppliers.” Some of those suppliers include Four Corners, Oriental Kitchen Corp., Golden Country and of course, as a last resort, Seafood City.

“We just empty the shelves,” Reyes said. He estimates that they go through about 3,000 ounces of concentrate in a typical month. Other restaurateurs that use a lot of calamansi said the same — they sometimes purchase the whole section at Seafood City, meaning the restaurants are also competing with everyday consumers. It’s not an ideal situation.

“When you buy it in bulk, it’s a lot better.” Reyes expects that they lose about 10% of the profit when they buy it from Seafood City.

Hardy prefers to shop for ingredients in person herself, utilizing business accounts and bulk rates at Asian markets such as HMart, Joong Boo and Park2Shop. Seafood City has no such program so she and others rely on word of mouth, group chats and texts to find out if they have calamansi in stock.

“I always put a hit out on Seafood City, because it’s the only place I found (fresh calamansi) here,” said Hardy. She might receive a message from a long-term customer, informing her that there’s fresh calamansi at Seafood City.

“That means I have two days, not even a day and a half, to get my butt over there to get 2 or 3 pounds,” Hardy said. Otherwise, it’ll sell out or miss its period of ripeness. Seafood City employees and other restaurateurs say even the frozen calamansi sometimes sells out within a few days of arriving.

When it’s available, Hardy takes the fresh calamansi and uses what she can for service, freezing the excess to preserve it before it goes bad.

“So when I’m using it for my drinks or marinades, I could truthfully say ‘made with real calamansi,’” Hardy said. But the supply challenges and price simply make it difficult to use fresh calamansi. Not to mention, juicing the small fruit is labor intensive with low yield.

USDA representatives confirmed fresh calamansi is not approved for import from its native Philippines. Some calamansi is grown in warmer parts of the U.S., but the stock is limited. Chicago restaurateurs mostly rely on brands of prepackaged calamansi that are frozen, extracts, concentrates or otherwise processed, such as Manila Gold, Pamana or Inday’s Best. Some, like newly arrived Reyes, weren’t even aware calamansi is available fresh in Chicago.

When I visited Seafood City on Oct. 3, the staff was momentarily confused when I asked where I could find calamansi. Initially, it seemed there was only the well-stocked freezer section of products. But eventually, I was directed to the produce aisle, where, to my surprise, plastic-wrapped, pre-packaged containers of a dozen or so fresh calamansi were selling for $5.99 a pound, making the fruit much more expensive than other citrus

It felt like I had stumbled upon gold. The staff warned me not to expect it again; supply was very unreliable.

Sending a picture of the mostly green calamansi to Fontelera of Boonie’s, he said the ripeness was “the ideal situation here in Chicago. When they turn orange, they lose the hallmark of calamansi, that very floral, strong note that you get at the front and they lose that really strong but pleasant acidity.”

Fontelera didn’t want to integrate a fruit on the menu that has unreliable supply and ripeness.

“If I had a really nice crop of calamansi, maybe I’d run a special,” Fontelera said. “But it’s not something I would feel comfortable or safe advertising as a long-term thing.”

I picked up a package of the fresh fruit, alongside a sparkling calamansi juice from Grill City in the grocery store food court. When I eat Pakistani food, I typically squeeze lemon or lime over stews and grilled meats. A sub of a tiny-half calamansi squeezed over keema, dal and rice added a completely unique mix of flavors: a lemon-lime tartness and orange sweetness and florality.

“It can be used in both savory and sweet applications,” said Lawrence Letrero, chef of Bayan Ko and Bayan Ko Diner. The Filipino-Cuban restaurants mostly utilize concentrate, with the rare fresh calamansi pickup from Seafood City used as a garnish. It’s featured in their lobster arroz caldo and in their bistek marinade. “I always say calamansi tastes as if a lemon, lime and orange had a baby.”

Tasting fresh calamansi just once, I could see why it was irreplaceable.

Some Filipino-owned restaurants said they did not struggle with supply chain issues. The Filipino-Mexican Novel Pizza Cafe, which opened in Pilsen this June, is an example of a creative and boundary-pushing new restaurant concept. Novel offers tavern-style and deep-dish pizza alongside a coffee menu. You’ll find longaniza, pandan and ube options on the menu, but most of its menu is the same as any quality Chicago pizzeria.

Francis Almeda and his co-owners said they utilize fewer specialty ingredients, and many of those ingredients are easy to order from suppliers or even Amazon. But he’s aware that others are facing issues.

Many of these new restaurant owners said they’re in constant contact. Fontelera credits the challenges of COVID for bringing many of these restaurateurs together. They connect in town halls, virtual or otherwise, in group chats, pop-ups and other events.

For Almeda, Reyes, Fontelera, Hardy and others, even though there may be some competition for ingredients such as calamansi, the new generation of Filipino business owners are all on the same page.

“The Filipino food community has supported each other in a variety of ways,” Almeda wrote. “Having fellow Filipinos pop up at their own shops, showcasing other Filipino entrepreneurs in their social media outlets, and hosting Filipino events that showcase a variety businesses at once … the overall Filipino entrepreneur community has supported each others’ businesses no matter how big or small they are.”

The Philippines Consulate believes there are nearly one hundred Filipino food establishments in all of Illinois as of August 2024. The consulate has been active in organizing with food businesses, holding a meeting for small business owners in food and health care this March.

Restaurateurs like Mano’s Reyes attended the small business seminar. He spoke to consular officials in the hope of improving the supply chain.

“This is something that has been a project of mine for a while, to work with the consulate and (U.S. governmental agencies) to increase the supply chain to wholesalers,” Reyes said.

Speaking of the event they held, Consul General J. Susana V. Paez said “apart from the inspiring stories shared by business owners in their respective journeys, the seminar brought to light the challenges faced by small business owners, including sourcing their inputs from the Philippines with the increasing demand for Filipino food items such as coffee, ube and chocolate.”

For now, many Filipino chefs just wish they knew when fresh calamansi was in Chicago.