For Women's Month, Action News met the self-taught chef and solidarity advocate Raquel Dang, who is now serving up Filipino fare at a new café and market.
She's bringing a taste of the Philippines to her Brewerytown neighborhood.
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On the menu are classic to contemporary Filipino cuisine, and at the coffee bar are drinks you can't find anywhere else in the city.
It includes a coffee made from kapeng barako, a type of coffee bean in the Philippines.
It's shipped to Philadelphia, roasted locally by Caphe Roasters, and served as shaken espresso with house-made coconut condensed milk.
For the last year, Dang and her husband Tam have been getting Baby's Kusina and Market ready to open.
Action News got a first look at the 2500-square-foot facility last year. Now, the Brewerytown space is on the verge of opening.
Getting to this point has been a journey, Dang said.
"We started as a supper club, and it was something that my husband Tam and I just really enjoyed hosting," said Dang.
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"I think during COVID, and probably for a lot of people, I started thinking about what is meaningful to me. I love my corporate job and said, 'There's no better time than now to try to make this work.'"
"I'm excited. I think it's been a long time trying to get this space ready. And now that we're just about ready to open, it's exciting. The reward outweighs the risk. I hope so," said Dang.
In the weeks leading up to opening, Dang has had small pop-up events previewing what's to come.
They featured everything from deserts to the traditional sisig, which is minced pork with a fried egg on top.
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The café will also be a marketplace for locally grown produce, making it one of only a handful of Filipino establishments in the area.
"To be able to have her culture be something that she wanted to focus on, was something that I felt like I needed to support," said Tam.
"I couldn't say no to supporting her."
Baby's opens soon, and once open the goal is also to employ at-risk teens, in the hopes of teaching them different parts of the restaurant business.