ready to sell out even before lunch, the happy couple behind KABALEN KAI, Nok and Edna Bognot, are all smiles on a rainy-sunny Saturday!
[ Note : It always makes my day to meet a Filipino kabayan in Wellington, whether at work or at play. Because it’s such a treat for me, I promise whenever I can to post it in this here humble little blog of mine. Centuries back, we used to be called Pintados, because we allegedly painted our faces. So welcome to my first in a series called Mga Pintados ng Wellington! thanks for reading! ]
THEY ARE the least obtrusive kiosk / stall at the Hutt Riverside weekend market, where Your Loyal kaBayan (YLB) Noel, when weather permits, spends precious downtime. To be quite honest: smallest food kiosk, least colorful food stand.
The menu is very spartan, admittedly a labor of love, but not that extensive: pork skewers (pork BBQ), BBQ pork bun (siopao); kutsinta, leche flan and Filipino kakanin (rice pastries), pork sisig (bits of pork sauteed and deep fried), and other exotic stuff. Not your normal New Zealand, Kiwi breakfast fare. However:
The Pork Sisig has sold out.
The Siopao has sold out.
Nearly everything else, save for the kakanin and leche flan (which admittedly needs an acquired taste) is gone.
Before noon.
Welcome to Kabalen Kai, loosely translated (in Kapampangan and Maori te Reo) to Homegrown or Homemade Food.
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Nok and Edna Bognot (pictured above in their food truck) have always loved cooking for people. For gatherings of 3 to 300, the Kapampangans (a region or province in Luzon, the North Island of the Philippines) in them have considered catering and pleasuring tummies second to nature. Only when somebody suggested that they do it as a business, starting out small before going big, did they consider actually catering formally.
It wasn’t an easy road. They enjoyed rave reviews, but the overhead ate up any profits. They always got four to five stars everywhere they went, but because they always chose taste over margins, they almost always ended up just over the break-even mark. Very little to show, except full stomachs, satisfied taste buds and good will among kabayan.
yum yum yum! i want everything, pero ubos na 😦
Nok and Edna stayed the course though. Saving up on the fees and licenses, crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s on all the paperwork, they literally rolled out, on a chilly rainy Saturday last April, their mobile resto named Kabalen Kai, a portmanteau of Kapampangan and Maori words.
Two out of four Saturdays (the Riverside Market is only open Saturdays) they’ve sold out, and surprisingly the patrons are not just kabayan like you and me. Asians, New Zealanders, every sort of hungry customer ends up coming back the next Saturday. Nok and Edna are happy, but then again they would be happy if they just broke even.
Masaya kami kapag nasasarapan ang customer, Edna shouts over the hiss and sizzle of the grill.
One more order of sisig, kabalen!
Thanks for reading and more power to you, Nok and Edna!
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