Bicolana mom’s story inspired top food

vlogger to open modern Pinoy resto in

Hong Kong Central
A dessert in the Barkada menu is a tribute to the owner’s mother, “the
woman whose sacrifices made this dream [restaurant] possible”
Filipina content creator Jen Balisi is known in the international food circle as the lady
behind the blog and Instagram account Indulgent Eats, where she features travel
experiences and “drool-worthy recipes and mind-blowing menu items.” She also
dabbles in putting up Filipino-focused pop-up restaurants in New York and Hong Kong,
and last year released her own cookbook entitled “Indulgent Eats at Home: 60 Crave-
Worthy Recipes Inspired by the World's Most Instagram-Famous Food.”

Early this year, the New York University marketing and international business graduate
made a big leap by opening a modern Filipino restaurant at HK’s Central District called
Barkada, together with hospitality group Singular Concepts. We first got to know the
food influencer-turned-restaurateur thru a touching Mother’s Day post about Barkada’s
bestselling dessert called “My Mom’s Cassava Cake.” In the Instagram reel, Jen says it
makes her so proud to have named it “after the woman whose sacrifices made this
dream [the restaurant] possible in the first place.” 

Jen’s mother, Joy, comes from a poor family in Bicol. Her parents raised Joy and her
seven siblings thru poultry farming. “She always told us how she would walk in the mud
for miles just to get to school every day,” Jen recalls to ANCX. The desire to give her
family a better life became the Bicolana’s greatest motivation to finish a nursing degree
and seek greener pastures in the United States.

When Joy got a job as a nurse in the US in the late 1980s, she already had a family of
her own. Which led her to make a few sacrifices, like leaving her husband and firstborn
back home in the Philippines. In those early years, she was on her own in New Jersey,
with no family to take care of her when she gave birth to Jen, her second child.

Joy’s perseverance eventually paid off. She was able to bring the rest of her family to
the US and fulfill their American dream. Jen tells ANCX that her mother’s family home in
Bicol has been renovated, thanks to Joy’s help. “Going back there, it kind of grounds
you and reminds you where your parents came from and how hard they worked to
provide better lives for us,” Jen says.

Pinay at heart

Jen may have spent her whole childhood in the US but she’s very Filipina at heart. This
is because she grew up surrounded by Filipinos. “My mom had her Filipino nurse
friends and so I grew up always going to family parties, eating buffet lines of Filipino
food,” she says. They lived in a community in New Jersey with many Pinoys so she
even grew up attending Simbang Gabi during Christmastime.

Cassava cake was something her mother would often make for parties and get-
togethers. Jen says it’s possibly because frozen grated cassava was very accessible in
the US, and also because of the influence of her father who hails from Laguna, where
coconut-based desserts are popular. “I grew up always eating buko pie and cassava
cake,” offers Jen.

Having dinners at home was a well-kept family tradition. “Every night, [my parents]
would cook dinner and we would watch ‘Jeopardy’ or whatever was on TV. There were
certain dishes that we had every week, like adobo and tinola.” Their family would fly
back to Philippines for vacations every two or four years.

Passion for cooking

It was when she studied for a semester in Prague that Jen discovered her penchant for
cooking. “There was no Asian food, let alone Filipino food. So I was like, ‘Oh crap, I
have to learn how to make this myself.’ That's the first time I learned how to cook
Filipino food for myself,’” she says.

After graduating at NYU, Jen worked at American Express in New York City, while
pursuing her growing passion for food thru blogging starting in 2011. Four years after,
she put up Indulgent Eats, where she talks about her wonderful discoveries on traveling,
home-cooking, trying out cheap eats, street carts, and multi-course Michelin-starred
meals.