Time Out magazine highlights Filipino cuisine option in one of LA’s up-and-coming areas
In the last two decades, Angelenos have lamented gentrification’s impact on the erasure of the historic local color that has raised rents and kicked out residents who’ve lived in certain neighborhoods for decades.
Among the neighborhoods on the cusp of that societal transformation is Los Angeles’ Historic Filipinotown, which seems to be reforming that jaundiced take of gentrification in a non-generic way that actually embraces the local culture.
So it’s really no surprise that this week, the global culture and lifestyle magazine Time Out released a list of the 50 coolest neighborhoods in the world and named Historic Filipinotown No. 5 on the list.
With its official designation in 2002 by then-Councilmember Eric Garcetti, Historic Filipinotown — nicknamed HiFi — was the first official geographic locale outside of the Philippines honoring the Filipino community. It exists within the section of Echo Park south of the 101 Freeway, which was the hub for Filipino immigrants in the early 1900s.
Time Out highlights the growing food scene of Historic Filipinotown which “reflects L.A. as its best: a convergence of cultures.”
Along Temple Avenue are remnants of the historic Filipino American sensibility of the area: beloved traditional Filipino restaurants that host karaoke like Bahay Kubo and Chibogs and modern Filipino fusion joints like Park’s Finest and Tribal Cafe line the thoroughfare. On Beverly Boulevard, longtime local favorite Little Ongpin serves classic Filipino flavors and sits across from the hip HiFi Kitchen, which serves up vegan takes on Filipino cuisine.
And it’s not just Filipino businesses that make up Historic Filipinotown’s vibrant landscape. Time Out also praises Woon, the new Chinese restaurant that blends authenticity and innovation and Bloom & Plume Coffee which celebrates black art.
In the extensive list, Time Out remarked that Historic Filipinotown “is still in the early stages of its rise” but that “HiFi is a spirit as much as an area, a place that feels refreshing and honest in a Los Angeles landscape that is quickly becoming over-funded and monotonous.”(Klarize Medenilla/AJPress)
