♪♪
-Fire one more pancit.
On back Kiki, have one
dinakdakan.
-Step through the door of the Musang
restaurant in Seattle's Beacon Hill,
and you'll be greeted by the warm
and welcoming aroma of Filipino cooking.
Stay for dinner.
-It really has a really nice, delicate,
almost nutty flavor. -And you'll discover the sweet,
sour, and salty flavors this restaurant is known for.
-There's a lot of Filipino roots in Beacon Hill.
A lot of Filipino families that still live in Beacon
Hill.
My dad immigrated here, so for me,
there is no other place that we wanted to exist.
-One kare, one fish two two. ♪♪
-My dad was an amazing cook and was always like,
“You need to know the importance
of Filipino food because you're Filipino.”
I had a really good childhood,
eating a lot of great Filipino food,
and with a lot of influence from him and my mom as well.
-And it's going to be your beef short rib
kare kare, has a savory peanut butter sauce,
with shrimp past, also some vegetables as well.
-During college,
I ended up working in the restaurant industry
as like a server, a hostess bartender.
I just fell in love with the industry in itself,
the camaraderie. ♪♪
So I ended up going to culinary school in Florence,
which was an incredible, life changing experience.
-Next, Melissa had the opportunity
to work in New York, where she gained
additional knowledge and experience.
-My family's here, and so I just wanted to come home
and, you know, think it was eight years that I was gone.
-After several years of doing pop ups around town,
Melissa was ready to take the plunge.
And in 2020, Musang opened right before the pandemic hit.
-We've always said that
we weren't just a restaurant space,
but we're a community driven space.
-So Musang became a community kitchen,
serving hundreds of meals a day to local residents
before gradually reopening 15 months later.
Eight birthdays in the house tonight, [exclamations]
which is about 30% of our tables.
-It's a home.
It's warm, you know, the kitchen's there.
So you see us.
It's just like a special place.
♪♪ -I think the dinner rush is
just starting to kick into gear.
When we first opened,
it was super important to have the menus in Tagalog first.
And it's because we want people to learn our language.
-Can I do the sinigang chips?
The lumpiang shanghai?
-I'm really lucky that my team here in the front
and my team at Kilig
are so invested in learning about Filipino food that
in their excitement of learning new knowledge,
they get to share that with the guests.
-And we'll start off with the bibingka.
And then kabibi alavar and the scallops.
And then we'll throw that pancit
noodles on there as well. That'll be a first course.
Everything else will be the second course for you.
-Two things on the menu right now
that are definitely influenced by my dad and my lola.
There's a dish called the adobong pusit pancit,
which is a squid ink adobo dish.
And another dish is our short rib kare-kare.
Kare kare
is traditionally made with oxtail.
It takes a long time.
There's a lot of love that one is just like
very nostalgic of my my lola and my family.
-While Filipino food is gaining the recognition, it's
so richly deserves,
it wasn't always that way.
-Growing up as a Filipino American, like being a chef
or being in the food industry isn't necessarily like,
something you can be proud of.
It's like you got to be a doctor.
You got to be an engineer. ♪♪
-Filipino food wasn't respected either.
It was seen as being a fusion
of Chinese, Spanish, and American influences
rather than its own authentic cuisine.
-And so I think for me, another part of
the experience of Musang is
how do we give value to our food?
How do we help
give that kind of pride and,
value for our parents to understand
and see their food on this platform?
We have all worked for other chefs,
you know, Italian chefs, French chefs, Japanese chefs.
Why hasn't there been a place for, like,
us to come and hone our craft
and share our food and share our stories?
You know, the restaurant industry is tough,
really tough. [background chatter]
And it's hard to find places that will, like,
take care of you and mentor you.
And I think that for me, it was important
to create more opportunities for people who look like me.
-Her goal of expanding and being more visible
in the community led Melissa to open a second restaurant,
Kilig, in the Chinatown-International District.
It was important to Melissa to be in the CID, ♪♪
a neighborhood where Filipino Americans
contributions were historically overshadowed.
-Growing up, I came with my dad a lot, and we'd had like,
Sunday
brunches with my whole family down the street at Hong Kong.
And so when
this opportunity came up, it was like,
we have to be representing Filipinos in the ID.
And we just wanted to showcase like another side
of the Philippines. It's like very bright.
It feels like you're at the beach, you're hanging out.
The food here is the stuff for like, more comfort.
And I want people to come in and families to say hi.
The thing we really hope for is that people walk away
with a memorable experience, and that's like what Filipino
hospitality is about.
-We're going to go to table seven. -Zach, fire
one more pancit.
-Yeah, thank you. It's going good. Welcome in.
All right so I'm Phil I'll be your server.
♪♪
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