Find the “Second-Best Adobo” at Taguan, a Redfern Newcomer Giving Cafe Classics a Filipino Twist

When Josemargo Flores and Vincent Baquiran opened their Redfern cafe, Taguan, a customer told them it was a bad idea.

“She frowned and said, ‘No one likes Filipino food’,” Baquiran tells Broadsheet. “She said we should open another banh mi place – there are three in our street, she thought we’d get the spillover when the others were busy.”

Baquiran found the feedback hard to take, but Flores (his partner in business and life) told him not to worry. They leaned into their plan to celebrate the evolution of Filipino cuisine in an Australian setting: saucing up bacon and egg rolls with banana ketchup; stuffing toasties with full-flavoured 24-hour slow cooked beef pares; and adding vibrant, lilac ube to their lattes.

Although some dishes riff on Australian cafe classics, Taguan doesn’t completely buck tradition. Chicken or pork adobo – using the recipe of Baquiran’s late father – is the menu’s centrepiece. Served with garlic rice, slices of fried potato and a jammy boiled egg, Tatay’s adobo is garlicky, with balanced salty, sweet and sour elements. And the story behind it is a testament to the resourcefulness of people living far from home.

“My family lived in Saudi Arabia for 39 years, and there was a lack of Filipino ingredients, so my dad tried to make adobo using the things that were available to us,” Baquiran says. “Every Filipino household has their own version of adobo, and everyone thinks theirs is the best. So we joke that ours is the second-best adobo because you can’t beat adobo at home.”

Taguan is the sibling venue to Flores’s original Taguan in Baguio, a city in the mountains four hours north of Manila. “Taguan means ‘hideaway’ in Tagalog. I used to work in advertising, and during the pandemic I left Manila and built Taguan as a safe space for me and my dog, Yakult.”

The Sydney counterpart contributes to a trend of venues – like Tita, Takam and Kariton Sorbetes – familiarising Australians with Filipino flavours. When writing the menu, the pair deliberated over using English words, like renaming tokwa especial, a dish of fried silken tofu served in a creamy sauce. They decided not to. “Everyone knows nasi goreng or rendang,” Flores says. “I think we have to stand our ground and get people used to the vocabulary and flavours of Filipino food.”

Flores and Baquiran want their 15-seater, dressed in sage paint, to live up to the high standards of the Filipino community.

“The fundamental problem with Filipino restaurants is a lot of Filipinos will say, ‘Why would I buy this when I can cook it at home?’ I feel that most Filipinos can cook, so that makes them a very hard audience to please.”

But they’re making solid inroads, and customers who have never tried Filipino food are getting involved too.

“When some people have finished their meal, they’ve thanked us, explaining it’s the first Filipino dish they’ve ever tried. It’s very humbling and it hits differently. It exciting, knowing we can do our part to introduce people to the Philippines.”

Taguan
191 Regent Street, Redfern

Hours:
Mon to Fri 6.30am–3pm
Sat & Sun 8am–3pm

@taguancafe.syd