Sunda New Asian restaurant in Detroit is celebrating Filipino American History Month with a special menu inspired by “Food Roots,” a documentary by their founder and CEO, Billy Dec.
The documentary follows Dec’s journey through the Philippines to “find his last living elders, learn the recipes of his ancestors, and gain a deeper understanding of his cultural and culinary identity.”
The exclusive menu features a dish inspired by every scene in the documentary, and Dec shared three of them with “Live in the D.” The first is an Oxtail Pot Pie inspired by the scene where Dec visits his grandfather’s farm. Next, he brought a mussel dish to highlight the beautiful seafood diversity among the 7,641 islands of the Philippines. Lastly, he showcases a charred pomelo Hamachi dish which spotlights the citrusy flavors native to the region.
In the studio, Dec plated a Pinakbet which is a Philippine vegetarian dish from Ilocos Sur, the northern part of the Philippines where his family is from. He prepared the dish with a twist, brûléeing a Japanese sweet potato live on set.
Speaking to “Live in the D” hosts Kim DeGiulio and Tati Amare about the flavor profiles that Sunda New Asian aims to recreate, Dec said, “We are always about mixing and elevating all these things from southeast Asia that we grew up enjoying our whole lives.”
Click the video above to watch the full segment.
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Dining and Cooking