Why are there so few Filipino restaurants?
Posted by Richard Tsukamasa Green on Wednesday, January 12, 2011
On Sunday I ate at a Filipino restaurant. This was a first; prior experiences of Filipino food had been solely at friends’ houses. Restaurants were simply just not around. In fact, some googling seems to indicate there may be less than 10 in the entire state of NSW.
Which is strange considering the population of Australians of Filipino ancestry. The 2006 census gives 92300 people who speak Tagalog at home. This compares to 53900 speakers of Turkish. And Turkish eateries are ubiquitous.
Ethnic restaurants are one of the standard features of the experience of immigration. Why has it not occured with the Filipinos?
I asked the proprietor. He said that there were “a few out west” (this was in Dee Why) that served lower quality cut of meat with “more bone and gristle” to Filipino diners that “mainstream” customers wouldn’t like. He had chosen Dee Why, and was using modified ingredients to appeal to mainstream diners.[fn1]
I didn’t press the point (the place was quite busy) but I found this unsatisfactory. After all, the “few out west” appears to be a couple in Lidcombe and Blacktown, which is where there are larger populations of Tagalog speakers, but that is still astoundingly few compared to other ethnicities, including smaller ones. Why the discrepancy?
I’m generally wary of explanations that involve preferences since they seem like non-explanations to me – they appeal to something (tastes) that are only observable in terms of the consumption patterns you’re seeking to explain in the first place, and it’s a poor explanation that explains a phenomenon based on the phenomenon itself. That said, they are particularly weak in this instance. To attribute diners of a non Filo background with a lack of taste for Filo food is to mistake the causality with other cuisines. There, ethnic cuisines became popular with the broader population only after the restaurants were founded to serve diners familiar with the food. It is only after exposure from these restaurants that the cuisines enter cookbooks and TV shows and get bastardised packet mixes in the supermarket. Even now, most cuisines will have restaurants that predominately are patronised by people of that ethnicity. This is true of Vietnamese or of the massively proliferating choice of regional Chinese cuisines (it’s more than Cantonese!); strikingly it’s still true of the very widely popular Italian. But these restaurants exist nonetheless. So it’s difficult to attribute the lack of establishments to non Filo preferences. The alternative is to say that the Filipino population is far smaller that other ethnic groups or has a special disinclination to eat their own cuisine at a restaurant. The first is easy to refute, the second seems absurd.
So I think the answer must be supply based.
There’s a reason ethnic restaurants proliferate. A diaspora community is always more likely to go into business. Even when domestic institutions
aren’t explicitly exclusionary, as was the case with European Jews and SE Asian Chinese, alien customs, culture and language make them difficult for migrants to enter. So they are more likely to choose self employment as a result. Hence the stereotypes of business acumen amongst said Jews or Chinese, or the Greek greengrocer or Indian service station owner. Additionally, a important part of the skills required for a restaurant (cooking a cuisine) has already been learned by being of that culture. Sometimes this can extend to neighbouring cuisines which have been picked up, such as the plethora of Japanese restaurants that are more likely to be run by Koreans instead of the relatively small and middle class professional Japanese community.[fn2]
Why is the Filipino community different, despite having a good supply of Filipino cooks?
Perhaps the clue lies in another statistic from the census. 61% of the speakers of Filipino at home are women. If we assume that a large portion of these are children born here and who are gender balanced, this implies the adult population of migrants is even more skewed. No other language on the list is that skewed.
What might this mean? We don’t need to resort to inate differences in gender to see how this might explain the restaurant question. One possibility: If these women are married, we will have a migrant group that is disproportionately made up of people whom are less expected to be main breadwinners in our still patriarchal society. This gives them an option of avoiding the workforce or entering low skilled part time work – options not socially acceptable for men who, alienated to some extent from most paid employment, gravitate towards self employment.
Alternatively, it may just point towards a feature of the community. A large part of the Filipino diaspora has left the Phillipines specifically to find work in low skilled sectors abroad, just as the 19th century Irish diaspora spread towards labouring jobs Unlike the Irish however, the low skilled jobs around today that they seek, in aged care or domestic service, are “feminine” occupations, both in the Phillipines and abroad and for both cultural and yes, preference, based reasons in supply and demand. The women leave because they can find work and the men stay because they can’t find work and war does not force them to leave; unlike any of the diasporas escaping from war ravaged Europe, the Middle East, Indochina or post Tiananmen China. Hence the gender discrepancy. If you’re in a low skilled job, you need not take the risk of self employment. Those for whom these jobs are less accessible are back overseas and therefore aren’t starting restaurants.
Unfortunately there are other communities that are not refugee in origin (although many, if not most are). For instance the majority of the non-Cantonese Chinese community is not related to the class of student admitted by a teary Hawke in 1989, but despite coming in the same era of feminised low skill work, the splits is 51-49 female to male if we take “Mandarin speakers” as a flawed proxy – we have an astoundingly large selection of differing regional Chinese cuisines to eat is restaurants as well. We’d also need to explain why the Philippines is apparently the only country exporting low skilled workers here – something beyond my capacities although I am sure it is possible.
But I can’t think of a better explanation as yet. You?
[fn1] It is worth noting that the only other diner who seemed to be of a non Filipino background was dining with someone who did appear to be so.
[fn2] Anecdotally, in the past at least, many of the astoundingly large number of Thai places were run by Vietnamese, which may explain why they could become a seeming plurality of independent takeaways in the Hunter and Sydney despite a relatively small migrant base.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 12th, 2011 at 2:56 AM and filed under Uncategorized.
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You’re not the first person to ask this question. Here’s a post from a blogger in Wisconsin: Where are the Filipino restaurants?
Jordan asked:
None of the commenters managed to answer the question.
Posted on 12-Jan-11 at 5:54 am | PermalinkHi Richard
Your hypothesis sounds plausible to me.
BTW What is the restaurant’s name and where in Dee Why? My extended family all live on the northern beaches so I get down there usually 2 or 3 times per year, and an excursion to a Filipino restaurant is an attractive idea.
Posted on 12-Jan-11 at 8:26 am | PermalinkThe gender disparity appears to have the most ‘logic’ going for it. But logic never grabbed me wrt much that goes on in the Philippines. Here’s a country that had a vote to resolve the ‘issue’ of whether they should become part of the USA.
Posted on 12-Jan-11 at 8:47 am | PermalinkThe predominance of Filipinos in the US asian population might partly explain this.
Then you have a highly stratified society with several hegemonic ruling families who will resort to wiping each other’s supporters out by violence. Then there is the catholicism, the predominance of english speakers, the longest running islamic rebellion, the domestic poverty and the overseas remittances … who’s got time to open a restaurant?
But it is an interesting question.
Don – Then I claim a first for explanation!
Ken – Right here
pablo – You’d think they could franchise this at least.
Posted on 12-Jan-11 at 9:22 am | PermalinkThere are a lot of food traditions in the Philippines, but the native cuisine is very peasant, and the elite cuisines imported (a lot of Chinese and American, some European). Hard to sell raw duck embryos (balut – standard Filipino delicacy), pig bits and salt fish in Sydney. I suspect that if Filipinos go into the restaurant business, they open up Chinese or Southeast Asian ones, as having a readier market.
Posted on 12-Jan-11 at 12:01 pm | PermalinkAs Peter T mentions, Filipino food isn’t that exciting.
Posted on 12-Jan-11 at 12:14 pm | PermalinkUnexciting even to Filipinos? As I already pointed out, all the other ethnic cuisines started up restaurants BEFORE the general public got a taste for it. To appeal to a lack of demand from the general public for Filipino food is to disregard the history of every other ethnic cuisine in this country. Even now we can see this happening with cuisines like Korean or even Uighur, which is incredibly unexciting and has a smaller migrant base than Filipino does? So if we assume a demand reason, we have to assume that Filipinos don’t like Filipino food.
Posted on 12-Jan-11 at 12:30 pm | Permalink“So if we assume a demand reason, we have to assume that Filipinos don’t like Filipino food.”
Not grossly implausible. Or they don’t consider it “going out” food.
To lend further credence, I’m for betting the number of Scots-themed eateries is even more out of whack with the ethnic Scots population than this Filipino disparity.
The only Filipino dishes I know (that aren’t obvious imports) are somewhat challenging “delicacies” for the most part. If I’m wrong about this, it’s because I’ve never been to a Filo restaurant!
Posted on 12-Jan-11 at 3:48 pm | PermalinkThe split of genders being 61% female might reflect the high incidence of mail order/internet brides/ex bar girls who married “boyfriends”?
Posted on 12-Jan-11 at 7:01 pm | PermalinkThese marriages aren’t entered into in my humble opinion with the aim of years of hard work in a commercial kitchen as the pay off.
What was the food like anyway? Was it actually “aussified” to be more acceptable to local tastes? lots of curries on the menu for instance?
Most of the comments about cantonese food also land wide of the mark – very few chinese restauarants serve authentic cantonese food to white customers as the tastes are too alternately too bland – jelly fish or unacceptable- winter melon- ( not really a melon but a sort of choko with lumps)the last word in being bitter and sour all in one!
No one learns to cook beef and black bean sauce or chicken and almonds at home – they are all made to suit gweilo tastes- you know gweilos they love salty oliy fried stuff!
I do agree with the observation about other ethnicities running thai places though in my experience it has been a takeover by a lot of cantonese familes as they see where the popular tastes are spending the money.
Finally the comment about Uigher food is also lacking depth of experience I think – the pancakes and breads alone make a trip to such places worthwhile but as a bread lover I’d say that!
Richard – The more I think about it, the more interested I get. It’s a great question. But if you want an answer I think you’re going to have to look at demand.
You suggest that other “ethnic cuisines became popular with the broader population only after the restaurants were founded to serve diners familiar with the food.” If this is right then what you’re really trying to explain is why some ethnic cuisines become popular with the broader population and others don’t. You’re assuming that most ethnic populations will support some restaurants.
I’ve had a few thoughts:
1. Some cuisines have become popular by a different route. The early restaurants didn’t serve an ethnic population. I think Mexican and Tex Mex are examples.
2. In the US, Barbara Gimla Shortridge and James R. Shortridge report: “With few exceptions, we found no strong relationship between the relative strength of an ethnic cuisine and the distribution of most ethnic groups.” Some areas like Detroit and Cleveland have large ethnic populations but relatively few ethnic restaurants. But college towns, state capitals and tourist areas have relatively high numbers. This sounds like demand at work.
3. As FDB suggests, some quite large ethnic populations don’t produce many restaurants serving their cuisine. Scots are one example, Eastern Europeans another (but saying that reminds me of my favourite Polish restaurant).
4. Your comments about Thai restaurants look like a clue. It seems to me that demand for Thai food was so strong that many non-Thai’s set up Thai restaurants (which reminds me of a Japanese sushi place in Canberra that is run by Koreans as well as an Irish pub in San Francisco also run by Koreans. In San Francisco the Koreans served us California-style sushi on St Patrick’s Day while we drank Budweiser, an American interpretation of Czech pilsner).
5. Demand isn’t just about preferences for a particular kind of food. For an area to spawn ethnic restaurants there needs to be a population of people with the desire and means (time, money, social circumstances etc) to eat out. Only then do preferences about cuisine become effective. And as I think you suggest, we’re talking about latent preferences because it may be food people have never seen or tasted before.
6. As with music, books and fashion, some cuisines may suddenly take off only to fade away again. Some individuals and groups may be particularly important in pushing a cuisine to a tipping point.
7. So it may be that what we need to explain is the latent preferences of a small proportion of the population.
Posted on 12-Jan-11 at 7:18 pm | PermalinkDon – It is fascinating, and I am far from satisfied with my hypothesis. Nonetheless.
I don’t entirely dismiss demand theories, obviously in the case of fads there is no other explanation, and it’s the only valid explanation we don’t eat Kangaroo as much as we could (since supply is clearly there), but I think they should be looked at after supply explanations have been entirely exhausted, since preference based theories are simply too hard to authenticate – they’re only observable only as they are practiced. Unfortunately for some reason (I suspect a public culture supported by marketing) we tend to go for the preference non-explanation as the first rather than last option.
A couple of thoughts
2 – Here for instance, whilst there’s a strong case for demand in the tourist areas, based on counter factuals around the world, I cannot dismiss supply theories in the other cases. The development patterns that hollowed out cities like Detroit and Cleveland haven’t left any commercial real estate suitable for a small business to start up. It’s only easy for greenfield development like fast food places, whereas state capitals and college towns retain traditional shopping areas (“downtowns”) that provide a place for an ethnic restaurant to start up. Additionally, (and this bears further research), if the “ethnic populations” (which may just mean non-anglo celtic) reflects post war migrants that came for jobs in the formally present industries, then they’d have no call for a small business. Low paid work was available easily.
3- The Scots aren’t too hard to explain from a supply perspective. They were far less likely to experience difficulty finding work – they were already English speaking, protestant (in an age where that mattered) and disproportionately educated. They also came in an era where low skilled work was easy to find, even though they needed it less. The Polish example I had noticed – since groceries and former groceries remain common they were obviously starting businesses, just not restaurants. Perhaps the availability of food at the innumerable Polish halls crowded out the restaurant trade.
Murph – Feel free to recommend some more Xinjiang places – I was very eager and felt very let down, so I want to find something that impresses me, and I did think about writing “cantonese” before. As for the marriage thing, I’ll just note the Troppo ad engines are now showing ads for filipinocupid.com.
Posted on 12-Jan-11 at 8:42 pm | PermalinkMy wife is Filipino and I’m Irish. At home, we cook Italian food, French food North Indian food, South Indian food, Ghanian food, Nigerian food, Gambian food, Thai food, Puerto Rican food, Mexican food… two things we NEVER cook? Irish food and Filipino food.
They aren’t that good.
Posted on 15-Jan-11 at 4:19 am | Permalink“One possibility: If these women are married, we will have a migrant group that is disproportionately made up of people whom are less expected to be main breadwinners in our still patriarchal society.”
Boing!!! You suspect that there are lots of Filipino women *who aren’t working*?! Have you ever met any Filipinos?
Posted on 15-Jan-11 at 4:31 am | PermalinkWhat is the distribution of Filipino population in US? If they tend to be more localized than other ethnic groups, then you may see an uneven distribution of Filipino restaurants. Eg, there is a well-established and large Filipino community in the San Francisco Bay Area and there are many authentic Filipino restaurants here. Whereas it’ll be hard to find one in the midwest.
Posted on 15-Jan-11 at 11:15 am | PermalinkI just moved from Toronto to Manila for a year. I have these observations. Locals that want to work overseas often already have a job lined up. Agencies help them straight out of nursing, care-giver and merchant seaman schools. Others go as maids to Asian and Arab countries. Again everything has been arranged by the time they leave. Scams that charge people large sums for the promise of an overseas job are a bit of a problem here.
Posted on 15-Jan-11 at 11:29 am | PermalinkGene – strangely enough the better part of my experiences and anecdotal evidence about the domestic eating habits of Filipinas in mixed marriages come from Irish-Filipino households, and some of these are in direct contrast to your own experience (but not to my own household’s low propensity to cook Anglo-Celtic or Japanese good).
Posted on 15-Jan-11 at 4:00 pm | PermalinkAlso, not having as much pressure to be the main breadwinner does mean a low propensity to work, just more acceptance as someone who can split between part time paid work and unpaid household labour rather than full time paid work.
[...] week Richard Tsukamasa Green wondered Why are there so few Filipino restaurants? At Marginal Revolution Tyler Cowen’s readers were also intrigued. Roy writes that Filipino [...]
Posted on 21-Jan-11 at 12:39 pm | Permalinkpinoy resto-to-population segment-ratio won’t work when you fellas consider pinoy food.
you know why? the answer is right on top of pinoy dining tables.
condiments.
every filipino dining table if not kitchen has various condiments (fish sauce, vinegar, soy sauce, chili sauce/powder, calamansi (lemoncito), garlic, pepper, ginger, etc) within easy reach, so that anyone in the family, from lolo & lola (grandparents) to the bunso (youngest child), can customize the flavor mix IN EVERY VIAND ON THEIR PLATE to their heart’s content.
given this gustatory freedom, it’s not really a good business idea to open a pinoy resto anywhere abroad where pinoys congregate, since they’re not likely to come in droves if the flavor profile doesn’t quite suit their individual palates.
take adobo, for instance. virtually any earthly creature that has meat on it can be cooked into an authentic adobo dish. in a pinoy restaurant setting, how would you cook it?
in vinegar? or in vinegar & soy sauce? with garlic & peppercorns? or with potatoes & chives too? take the middle ground, and you may never be able to attract a sufficient number of pinoys to eat it. go regional, and those coming from other provinces would not come back for more.
cooking for pinoys is that tough. that’s why they’d rather eat at home so they can cook & eat it the way they want. and that’s where you can eat the best pinoy cooking there is.
good luck!
Posted on 06-Mar-11 at 12:38 am | Permalink