I admit to a little bit of culture shock moving from the Bay Area to Central Ohio when it came to population makeup: I basically moved from an city where nearly 25,000 people were of Filipino heritage to a whole region where there were 2,500 or so scattered around.
Not surprisingly, Filipino food has been a little harder to find in the wild here. I learned shortly after my arrival of a Filipino restaurant near the Columbus/Reynoldsburg border in Chuchay's, but their location wasn't the most convenient to where I was living and the eatery shut down soon afterward. Other encounters have been rare but very welcome: the original Red Velvet Cafe in Reynoldsburg, and two food trucks in the form of Mya's Fried Chicken (courtesy of special pop-up events by owner Mark Tolentino) and, more recently, Asian Persuasion.
Perhaps the most welcome addition for me (and many other area diners) has been the downtown Columbus branch of the previously mentioned Red Velvet Cafe. Owned by Krizzia Yanga, the cafe not only brought the very appealing original cupcake/coffee pairing that fueled the original location for so long, but also brought local diners a taste of Filipino cuisine with their weekend brunch service.
