Portland Vegan Filipino Pop-up Anak Serves Ube Cheesecake Lumpia | Eater Portland

"I see Anak as both a celebration of Mendiola’s family and his claim to space as a vegan Filipino chef in Portland: named for the Tagalog word for “child” as a tribute to his late father, the pop-up launched at the Vegan Night Market after he and collaborators rolled 2,000 vegan lumpia, and it offers vegan interpretations of Filipino standards including pancit bihon fried rice noodles; chicken adobo fashioned as soy-protein sugarcane drumsticks; smaller Shanghai-style lumpia filled with a meat-like mix of vegan ground beef, mushrooms, carrots, and water chestnuts; a gluten-free garlic fried rice made with tamari and crispy-savory Thrilling Foods bacon bits; and a halo-halo shaved ice topped with Cultured Kindness New York–style cheesecake (in place of flan), sweetened jackfruit, sweet beans, coconut jellies, and house-made ube jam. The most nontraditional item is a sweet lumpia that wraps Cultured Kindness ube cheesecake, and Mendiola plans to expand the menu to vegan batchoy, lechon made with vegan pork belly, estofada, and biko sweet rice cake." - Waz Wu