Making PogiBoy the ‘Jollibee’ of Fil-Am Fast Food
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PogiBoy’s Chef Paolo Dungca (left), Chef Tom Cunanan (center) and business partner Arturo Mei (Photo by Costa Dino Photography)
Chef Tom Cunanan was a 2019 James Beard Award winner at Bad Saint where Chef Paolo Dungca joined him briefly as his sous chef. A raging pandemic didn’t deter the friends from opening Pogiboy on January 27, 2021.
This year, the Washington Post named The Eugene one of its 25 Best Sandwiches in the DC area. It’s a Baltimore pit beef sandwich Chef Tom named after his late brother. The “Chino” tocino burger is the fan favorite on the PogiBoy menu.
The Pogi Burger (Photo by Costa Dino Photography)
To “Chino” Burger (Photo by Costa Dino Photography)
Opening a Restaurant in the Worst of Times
“A pandemic is the worst time to open a restaurant,” understates Chef Paolo. “But we saw this as an opportunity to feed people during a tough time. We could give customers comfort and our nostalgia for Filipino dishes.”
Pogiboy, Tagalog slang for handsome boy, did struggle. “Keeping the business afloat was tough. Some of our staff tested positive for Covid. Lots of DC residents were laid off so it was hard for them to spend money,” he says of the decision to maintain prices in the $12 range.
PFC (Pogi Fried Chiqen) Wings (Photo by Costa Dino Photography)
Never Looking Back to San Fernando or Fusion
Chef Paolo immigrated as a child with his family from Pampanga in 2004. He grew up in the San Fernando Valley. “In 2014 I was visiting a cousin in DC, fell in love with the city and never boarded my return flight.”
Before PogiBoy, Chef Paolo followed up work in the farm-fresh kitchen of Restaurant Eve in Alexandria, Virginia with a deep plunge into Filipino and Thai cuisines at Kaliwa in DC. He resents the common comment that Filipino cuisine is a fad.
“It’s not trendy but something that was always present. Filipino chefs who’ve trained all over the world are finally embracing their heritage. For Chef Tom and I, Filipino food is a way to promote our Filipino hospitality, history, and culture.”
Fiesta Spaghetti (Photo by Costa Dino Photography)
Blooming Sam “pogi” ta (Photo by Costa Dino Photography)
Now that DC permits indoor dining, PogiBoy does brisk business from the downtown workers. “On weekends we have Filipino families driving in from as far away as Virginia Beach, Philadelphia, New York. We recently had someone come from Ohio just to eat our Filipino food.”
PogiBoy offers Impossible Burger as a substitution for vegetarian diners. Chef Paolo says, “We try to keep our menu items like how we had them when Chef Tom and I were growing up. There’s really no vegan in Filipino cooking.”
This hardline stance is a matter of principle. From the 1970s through the first decade of this century, Asian fusion combined and adapted familiar dishes for American tastes. Authentic Asian cuisine began when Filipino chefs like Paolo and Tom stopped compromising. PogiBoy proves that even when chefs are inflexible about producing flavors familiar to Filipinos, there’s still space for creativity. Their stubbornness is validated by a hungry market to keep them in business during a prolonged public health crisis.
Since becoming a Positively Filipino staff correspondent, Anthony Maddela has covered an extensive range of topics from NBA basketball players to birds to skateboarders and ballet dancers. He’s on Instagram @anthony_maddela.
Celebrities post on Instagram frequently multiple times a day, but do they ever check their messages? One-sided relationships are the unsocial media norm. Nevertheless, Anthony Maddela (@anthony_maddela) is looking for anyone who can land him an interview with Olivia Rodrigo, Bruno Mars or Neil Etheridge. Lotsa’ luck...
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