

In 2019, Ethan Leung was one particular of Seattle’s “next incredibly hot chefs,” a sous at the scorching Ben Paris inside a modern new downtown hotel. A several many years before, he experienced bailed from the financially secure world of his family’s desires: engineering. Monotonous, he named it. Soul-draining. In cooking, he found factors that drew him to breakdancing—creativity, self-expression, camaraderie. He figured out the fundamentals on YouTube and on the occupation. At Ben Paris, he was a climbing expertise headed for the prescriptive food world route.
But Ethan, who holds a diploma in physics, and his wife Geri, a tech-earth electronic marketing and advertising expert, experienced other strategies. Throughout the pandemic, the Leungs take a look at-drove a Seattle pop-up termed Baon Kainan, melding their moms’s Filipino cooking, breakdancing philosophy, some cheffy strategies, and a enjoy of American fast food items. Customer feedback ranged from “amazing” to “why would not this taste traditional?” In a town like Seattle, with a substantial, founded Filipino community, they wondered the place their personal type in shape.


A person diner modified anything: Richard Le, the Vietnamese-American food explorer and chef of Portland food cart Matta. Le, a b-boy like Ethan, frequented Baon Kainan previous summer season on the suggestion of mutual close friends in their breaking crews.
As Le tells it, “Filipino foods is 1 of my top rated five cuisines. I have had all these dishes just before, but not like this. I was blown away by his displays, but it was the tiny things. Like the cucumber tomato salad with small lime jellies in there. I stated, ‘Yo, what the fuck is this? Bro, what are you carrying out? You require to open your very own small business.’”
Le made the scenario: Portland, with its supportive food items cart group and nascent Filipino foodstuff scene, was the spot for Baon Kainan (pronounced BAH-ohn cah-e-nahn). “Baon” translates to foods you’d choose on a journey, or for lunch or to function “kainan” usually means eatery. Soon after a couple of well-been given pop-ups at Matta, the few moved to Portland in April. Baon Kainan plans to open up August 7, actions absent from Matta at Metalwood Salvage, 4311 NE Prescott St. Opening hrs will be Thursday–Monday, 4 pm to 7 pm.
The cart’s tagline? “Not your tita’s cooking”—no disrespect to the aunties intended.
“We want to tell our story by way of food,” claims Geri. Ethan was born in the Philippines prior to shifting to Washington. Geri grew up having Italian food stuff in Italy. Southern meals is also portion of her story, also, following her family members moved to the South. And both equally are influenced by their mom’s classic cooking. “What you ate at tita’s celebration, you will not likely come across it right here,” Geri states. “But it will remind you.”


My initial taste of Baon Kainan was a dish of kare kare during a spring pop-up. As an alternative of the common oxtails stewed in peanut sauce, to be eaten with bites of rice, Ethan conjured a sort of Filipino poutine, heaping peanut-sauced braised short ribs in excess of french fries sided by are living-wire wallops of bagoong (shrimp paste) and pickled chiles. I wolfed it in my car with abandon.
Kare kare seems to be to be a spotlight of the menu together with rooster (or mushroom) adobo and dinuguan (pork belly in pork blood stew). I am keen to try the Filipino spaghetti flashing home made banana ketchup, a condiment commonly bottled. Meanwhile, I’m praying that tomato and cucumber salad—a Filipino facet dish essential—will however have those lime inexperienced jellies that transfixed Le. “It’s a cheffy contact,” confides Ethan.


Desserts could be the cart’s sweet spot. The couple’s karioka are a treat—subtle, delicately deep-fried coconut rice balls that soar to existence when plunged into the thick, coconut caramel glaze. Also in the operates: turon, a burro banana and jackfruit lumpia glazed with banana caramel sauce, and bibingka, a coconut rice cake baked in banana leaves and topped with a Baon Kainan twist of coconut crumble.
And at the time it settles in, Baon Kainan hopes to bust out a brunch menu: biscuits and longganisa sausage gravy to breakfast sandwiches on Geri’s cart-produced pandesal rolls, backed by mayo, American cheese, and a fried egg. The system also contains a common Filipino breakfast and champorado, a entire-on chocolate rice porridge.
Ultimately, they hope Baon Kainan will be about one thing extra than food stuff, as the cafe planet seems to be for new designs of wondering and being and a route ahead.
“Unfortunately,” says Ethan, “terrible truths [in the industry and beyond] have occurred and will go on. I have faced not finding paid the exact quantity as cooks with the exact knowledge, faced some racist remarks and discrimination. My individuality is really reserved it can be challenging for me to discuss up. Now, with Baon Kainan, we have a voice.”
Adhere to Baon Kainan on Instagram @baonkainan