Pho and banh mi instead of pandesal and mami? Such is the everyday fare in the port city
Snacktime and early evening in Puerto Princesa is like any other Philippine urban center: heady and bustling with the sounds and smells of tricycles and jeeps, the relieved chattering of office workers and students, the smoke from food stalls, street grills, and carinderia, the dragging of monobloc chairs, and metronomic whip-whip-whip of ceiling fans.
For a local tourist on foot in the city, nothing seems out of the ordinary, until one notices the lack of Philippine culinary staples such as mami houses and corner pandesal bakeries. Instead, Puerto Princesa has Vietnamese restaurants and bakeries serving what is locally called chao long but more commonly known as pho as well as a side of spring rolls (goi con) or baguette sandwiches (banh mi).
A new home
In the mid-1970s until the early ’90s, hundreds of thousands of refugees from Indochina, a state formerly composed of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, fled from wars, most notably the Vietnam War.
In the rush for safety, many haphazardly took to sea and were called “boat people” by the Western media. Some perished at sea, most reached ports and were promptly turned away, but in the Philippines, despite some politicking, they were largely welcomed on humanitarian grounds.
There were two major sites that housed them: Bataan and Puerto Princesa. Both have since closed as the refugees moved on to other countries like the United States, Canada, and Australia, or decided to return to Vietnam.
The one in Puerto Princesa, the Philippine First Asylum Camp, continues to thrive, albeit in a different form. Today, the camp is now known as Viet Ville, a tourist spot as well as a weekend go-to for locals, especially for special occasions, filled with photogenic gardens and cottages, and of course, a Vietnamese restaurant.
Many original residents from Viet Ville who chose to remain in the city have since opened their own restaurants. Soon, Palaweños adapted and opened their own chaolongan, noodle houses serving pho, banh mi, and spring rolls but more suited to Filipino taste buds. One of the more visible chaolongan in Puerto Princesa is Bona’s, also noted for serving Yakult slushies.
Many original residents from Viet Ville who chose to remain in the city have since opened their own restaurants. Soon, Palaweños adapted and opened their own chaolongan, noodle houses serving pho, banh mi, and spring rolls but more suited to Filipino taste buds.
In 1975, as Saigon fell to the Northern Vietnamese Army, Auntie Hai, as the Vietnamese press calls her, moved to Manila with her two sons with the help of her Filipino husband. When he passed away in 1980, the family moved to Puerto Princesa, likely aware of the Vietnamese presence there.
One of her sons, Rene, earnestly wanted to learn Vietnamese food, and after working dedicatedly at one of the Vietnamese restaurants there, was eventually chosen to learn their banh mi rice flour recipe. Auntie Hai and Rene eventually opened a bakeshop, which evolved into a restaurant, Rene’s Saigon.
In 2011, when Vietnamese fishermen were rescued by Filipino coast guards, the Vietnamese ambassador decided to stop by and dine at said restaurant. Today, visitors often order batches of loaves for takeout.
Localization: Bridging cultures
Ask any Puerto Princesa tricycle driver what their comfort food is and chances are they’ll mention their barangay’s chaolongan (chaolong house). Chaolong is actually a misnomer from the point of view of Vietnamese cuisine as the name actually refers to a dish closer to our goto: offal served in rice porridge sprinkled with scallions and garlic.
Just as Filipino Chinese food is an Indigenized version of Cantonese and Fujianese cooking adapted through generations for Filipino taste buds, so it is for Puerto Princesa’s little Vietnam.
In contrast to traditional pho with a light, herby broth, chaolong is heavier, swapping the lime for calamansi (or kalamunding, the local variant), and with a more generous amount of beef fat akin to mami and bulalo, reddened by dollops of annatto. Aside from chicken (ga) and beef (bho) pork is also a common stock here, quite unusual for pho back in Vietnam.
In contrast to traditional pho with a light, herby broth, chaolong is heavier, swapping the lime for calamansi (or kalamunding, the local variant), and with a more generous amount of beef fat akin to mami and bulalo, reddened by dollops of annatto.
One thing Filipinos share in common with the Vietnamese, especially in Puerto Princesa, is our love for contrasts: freshly-caught or -harvested ingredients, lightly seasoned, sparring with rich, savory dishes, like the grilled Palaweño inato chicken often served with lightly seasoned ocean fish, crustaceans, and seaweed to the Puerto Princesa banh mi sandwich overflowing with mayo, ketchup, and sliced hotdogs or savory char siu pork in Vietnamese-owned restaurants.
Filipinos are known as a warm, hospitable people. But beyond welcoming tourists, this has also extended to welcoming refugees.
“I have served with the [United Nations Refugee Agency] in many countries. What makes Filipinos special is that they seem to naturally and intuitively understand and empathize with people who have been uprooted from their homes by war, conflict, violence, persecution, and calamities,” said Yasser Saad during his time as UNHCR Philippines’ Head of Office in 2017, commenting on our history of welcoming refugees from the 20th century all the way to present-day conflicts.
Perhaps, on a literal gut level, given the regularity of natural calamities and our history of colonization and ongoing struggle for democracy, giving comfort and helping kapwa comes naturally to us: Anyone in need is kapwa, is not an other, but a fellow.
Filipinos are warm, hospitable people. Sometimes this warmth manifests in a bowl of rice noodles on a rainy evening, surrounded by friends who’ve come to call your town home,
Filipinos are warm, hospitable people. Sometimes this warmth manifests in a bowl of rice noodles on a rainy evening, surrounded by friends who’ve come to call your town home.
The author is an alumni of the two-month long Ateneo Culture Encounters program (formerly Ateneo Culture Lab), a field school also open to post-graduate, non-enrolled students, and members of the public looking for a certificate course in cultural fieldwork. He and his teammates wrote a paper documenting Puerto Princesa’s food traditions, from Indigenous to integrated, presenting their findings to the local government. Visit Ateneo Cultural Encounters for more information.