Cashing in on Pinoy food cravings

French-born Filipina and college buddy build a Filipino eatery from the ground up for homesick Filipinos at the heart of Paris

“We noticed that Filipinos visiting Paris would be homesick by the end of their trip. So they come to us. Which means a lot to me because the main goal was to really introduce Filipino culture and cuisine to the French, but I also wanted to create a place where Pinoys would feel at home.”

THE next generation of migrant Filipinos are living it — the callback aromas and flavors of the motherland rising from the streets of their adopted country.

This is the case for Jessica Gonzalez, co-founder of Bobi Paris, the fun and relaxed Filipino food eatery at the heart of Paris, France.

Gonzalez was born in France to Filipino parents. Now 34 years old, the chemist by training cooks Filipino dishes in Bobi's kitchen.

Filipino food has been the darling of some fine dining chefs the world over, but Gonzalez and her business partner Aurélie are unique in celebrating the casual, convivial side of it.

The bistro vibe of Bobi catches up with the quotidian realities of eating in the homeland.

Bobi is a spin-off of boui-boui, the French term for a small eatery.

Think of something similar to the street food stalls of Vietnam where the late Anthony Bourdain dined with former US president Barack Obama.

In the Philippines, this has a name of its own: the carinderia or the turo-turo.

Casual, normal dining, it's what Gonzalez and Aurélie stand for.

“My worst fear is that people come here and they are not at ease,” Gonzalez said.

And being at ease means sending up Occidental dining etiquette, which could be intimidating for Filipinos visiting France.

Bobi offers the Kamayan for two, a scaled boodle fight with the usual suspects: inihaw na liempo, chicken inasal, barbecue, shrimps, vegetables and (naturally) rice arrayed on a banana leaf and surrounded by Filipino condiments.

Eating with hands is the biggest cultural outlier among the gastronomic exports of the Philippines to France.

Offering this on the menu is a big leap considering the penury of Filipino gastronomic representation in the French city.

Gonzalez and Aurélie wanted to create something “that looks like us, that showcases who we are.”

Aurélie is from Madagascar, but their friendship goes way back, permitting an identity mirroring.

“We share the same values, principles,” Gonzalez said. Those were framed by their common education: both hold degrees in Chemistry. Gonzalez pursued a master's degree in marketing and Aurélie in business development.

“We had no idea at the time that we would be entrepreneurs, yet,” Gonzalez thought back.

She was still trying her hand in the cosmetics industry.

“But with all the jobs I had, it became clear [the cosmetics industry] wasn't for me.”

Aurélie liked Filipino culture and food.

“At the time there was no Filipino restaurant. When we wanted to eat [it] outside, we couldn't,” Gonzalez recalled. So they opened Bobi three months toward the end of 2019, not knowing they were cooking straight into the Covid-19 pandemic.

The precursor to the mayhem that was the global health crisis were Paris' structural pauses to “business as usual.”

Transport strikes and rallies (the famous manifs) are a way of life, an inevitable feature of Frenchness that the young owners of Bobi had to be logistically prepared for on the regular.

Their beginnings, just two weeks after opening, contended with such events interrupting foot traffic into their establishment.

“There was no metro, no transportation at all,” Gonzalez recalled, citing the world renowned convenient rail system of the city. “Everything froze in Paris.”

The strikes did not let up, even as Covid-19 crept in. Paris in quarantaine (in fact the root of the word quarantine) would have been the most striking scene of the dystopian nightmare for food and restauration: terrasse dining was shot, the brasseries and restaurants were shut.

Gonzalez would now chalk up their survival to their teamwork and independence.

“Aurélie would be in front of the house, and I'm in charge of the kitchen and the creativity and marketing, so we managed to work just the two of us during Covid.”

They were not dependent on a chef who had to commute to work.

There would be intermissions of “normalcy” amid the scares and lockdowns.

“We managed to stay open and be visible to people on social media,” she said. And they marched on until the fog lifted and a fugue of success settled in its wake.

Now, the Filipino tourists — Bobi's main market — are back.

“We noticed that Filipinos visiting Paris would be really homesick by the end of their trip,” she said. “So they come to us. Which means a lot to me because the main goal was to really introduce Filipino culture and cuisine to the French, but I also wanted to create a place where Pinoys would feel at home.”

It's the coziest clash of civilizations. Gonzalez and Aurélie wanted to straddle both worlds, and the cosmopolitan crowds obliged. It feels true to Paris' renown as a catchment of worldly adventurers, shoving liempo and rice into their mouths with their fingers, along the jaunty lines of Hemingway's “A Moveable Feast” in the 1920s.

Gonzalez and Aurélie's Frenchness in their adoptive country is channeled into another inevitable glue binding Paris to its tourists and inhabitants: the café.

The continued success of Bobi permitted them to expand into Kapé at rue de Malte, 11th arrondissement.

The purple proposition: an ube latte served with pan de sal. The arresting familiarity to Pinoys extends to the puto and latik, adobo in a bun called the adobo dip and hot chocolate, menu items all precisely translated into French.

The chic addresses that are Bobi and Kapé are not just in Paris. They could very well lead to Mindanao, where the research picks up.

Gonzalez goes home with her parents to their native province of Batangas every year. Each trip back to the country means new concept cobbling, derived from the same identity search.

“I know there's still more. We traveled to Mindanao and I saw new dishes I didn't know before.

It took me 30 years to get to know those dishes. Pinoy food is so much more than adobo or kare-kare,” she said. For now, however, adobo remains the bestseller in Bobi, to little surprise, besting only Gonzalez's personal favorite, her own version of sisig.

The making of a carinderia

Paris is the fashionable world capital whose gleam bounces back to Philippine consciousness through silken snapshots of Filipino high fashion influencers and fortunate tourists during Paris Fashion Week.

The reverse of the relatively rarefied cultural encounter could be said: “The Philippines does not exist in the mental ecumene of Europeans. Of course, the diplomats would say.” (Guéraiche, 2013) (writer's translation from French). The continent might just be getting to know the Philippines through the lens of migrant workers in Europe and the next generation of this expatriate cohort.

Thus, pitching cultural and gastronomic Pinoy outposts in foreign cities is a bold undertaking of a young, energetic set like Gonzalez and Aurélie.

Their lifetimes were also spent navigating the system: the strikes, the notorious bureaucracy. Their success stands on mounds of judicious paperwork. “

“You need so much patience,” Gonzalez says of the legwork. Apparently, tedious bureaucratic processes are not a monopoly of the Philippines.

“It really needs organization for the paperwork. There are a lot of steps. If you miss one thing, it can delay everything.” Permits are needed for everything: the shopfront alone could take five to six months to be approved by the relevant authorities.

By now, she and her business partner have mastered the art of setting up. They are looking into future concepts.

The smooth sail of Bobi and Kape promises an ecosystem of cultural exchange from Gonzalez and Aurélie's little carinderia in the heart of Paris.

*****

Quick questions

What really makes you angry?

When there's a lack of empathy between people.

What motivates you to work hard?

The sense of purpose by being an ambassador to my Filipino culture in France and the passion in what I do to achieve it.

What makes you laugh the most?

Other people laughing, some laughs can be so contagious! And funny scare pranks.

What did you want to be when you were small?

An architect or any job that included space design.

What would you do

if you won the lotto?

I would definitely spoil people I love and invest in talented people with amazing projects that could change society in a positive way!

If you could share a meal with any individual, living or dead, who would they be?

My lolo (grandpa). He was an inspiration. He was the creative one in the house. He would always go after his passions. His life motivated me to go out of my comfort zone. I would have loved to share with him what I'm living right now. He would have been a great advisor.

What's the most daring thing you've ever done?

Hesitating between a parachute jump and opening a business!

What was the last book you read?

As I continuously do research in Filipino food, the last book I've read was “Tikim” by Doreen Fernandez.

Which celebrity would you like to meet for a cup of coffee?

Mark Cuban. My entrepreneur side would pick him as I appreciate his love of other entrepreneurs and how he could help them. The way that he'd rather capitalize on people's talent/ideas than a selfish project is very inspiring.

What is one thing you will never do again?

I would say nothing. I've been taught that I will always make mistakes, so better try to learn from them than to dwell on them! They're great lessons to help you grow positively.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

Hopefully, still growing Filipino projects in France to promote the culture!