Kamayan restaurant forges ahead despite pandemic

Kamayan restaurant forges ahead despite pandemic

Kamayan food for delivery

By Irish Mae Silvestre
The Philippine Reporter

Tala may have just opened on April 3, but the orders keep coming in fast. Yet, the restaurant’s dining area remains empty, except, of course, for the endless line of delivery workers who are part of a large army feeding hungry, self-distancing city dwellers.

“We’ve been absolutely speechless with how much the Filipino community and the whole city has been so responsive to our menu items,” said Sasha Ortega, whose mother Cathy owns the restaurant. “They’ve been ordering insane amounts and it doesn’t feel like we’re going through a pandemic right now.”

Kamayan to go in a pizza box

At a time when restaurants are closing or scrambling to switch to take-out only service, Tala is thriving. The restaurant mainly serves kamayan, which is quite the feat considering the Filipino feast is made to be eaten with hands and shared with a large group of people – a definite no-no in these times.
“It’s so weird,” admitted Ortega. “But we provide individually packed cutlery with tissue and little wet wipes.”

Tala is the second kamayan restaurant by the Ortegas. Along with restaurateur Gerald Aquintey, Cathy co-owns Tinuno in St. James Town, Toronto. Cathy, who has always worked in the food industry and catered for places like Casa Loma, often brought her daughter along and had her peeling carrots and chopping onions.

“She used to cook Italian food but there’s a weird trust issue, especially if you’re not the [same nationality as the cuisine you’re cooking],” said Ortega. “My mom said, ‘I’m Filipino, why don’t I embrace my own culture to help push our food to the top?’”

Tala was the result of finding the perfect downtown location through a Kijiji ad. Ortega, who’s currently on hiatus from her job as an art director, saw the possibilities. Renovations wrapped up within a few weeks just as the pandemic hit.

Tala owner Cathy Ortega

However, the Ortegas were undeterred.

“We decided that, if anything, we would come out taking some kind of a spotlight since we were the only ones willing to do this,” she said.
And the risk paid off.

On opening day, they had to freeze the delivery app since they simply couldn’t keep up with the demand. “Filipinos in the city are ordering, not just to taste the food, but to support a family-run business,” said Ortega.

They’ve since streamlined their delivery service. And, in an effort to reach more areas of the GTA, they now have scheduled deliveries in areas like Scarborough, Mississauga and North York on different days of the week.

Of course, it would be remiss not to mention the idea behind the name.

“I came up with the name Tinuno since I like simple names,” she said. “When we were thinking of names, I said, ‘Why can’t it be something like star or sun since those are things on the Philippine flag? What about tala?’ Everyone started laughing and I asked them why they were laughing, and they said that it’s because that’s a really popular song by Sarah Geronimo. And I said, ‘Okay, I guess that’s it.’”

As for the pizza boxes, the idea came to them while brainstorming in their new space about the most efficient wayto package kamayan.
“There’s a pizza place in front of us and we were staring at people carrying pizza boxes and we were like, ‘Wait, why can’t we use pizza boxes?’” recalled Ortega. “It was just a natural thing and we were inspired on the spot.”

The kamayan kits come in two different sizes and are priced at $19 and $36. The large kamayan kit certainly has weight, which is hardly surprising since it’s packed with a colourful array of atchara, grilled pineapple barbecue, grilled squid, shrimp, mussels, okra, eggplant, garlic rice, and your choice of milkfish or inasal. And it’s all served on a banana leaf.

These days might be busy for the Ortegas but they haven’t forgotten the ones in the frontlines, so they partnered with Meals TO Heal to feed health workers.

“We give them easy-to-prepare binalot (package) meals with rice, ulam, achara and a fruit,” said Ortega. “They’re so grateful and some of them even bring out signs saying ‘thank you’ from their different departments. For others, it’s their first time trying Filipino food and they’re like, ‘The garlic rice is so addictive.’”