My Published Articles for ViewsHound

Thursday, March 19, 2026

FOB Kitchen West- New Location in Oakland, CA

The Family for Lunch on my 91st Birthday, December 20, 2025 at FOB Kitchen

Janice Dulce- Chef and Owner, FOB Kitchen

The restaurant is FOB West, the new East Bay location of FOB Kitchen, and it is inside

Prescott Market food hall at 1620 18th Street, West Oakland, California.

FOB West

is the new second location from the team behind FOB Kitchen, located

in West Oakland's Prescott Market.

This new outpost, which officially opened in March 2026, is a more casual, counter-service version of the original Michelin-recognized restaurant.

Location Details

Address: 1620 18th St., Oakland, CA 94607
Venue: Inside the Prescott Market food hall
Operating Hours:
- Monday – Thursday: 7:00 AM – 9:00 PM
- Sunday: 7:00 AM – 8:00 PM
- Note: Hours may vary during the initial opening phase.

What to Expect

While the original FOB Kitchen in Temescal is a full-service restaurant and bar,

FOB West
focuses on a faster, more affordable menu.

Guamanian Influence: Chef Janice Dulce is using this location to highlight
dishes from her upbringing in Guam, alongside Filipino classics.
Menu Highlights: Expect staples like Shanghai lumpia (pork or vegetarian),
arroz caldo (chicken rice porridge), and chicken inasal marinated in
lemongrass and ginger.
Atmosphere: The stall maintains the brand's signature tropical aesthetic with
blue diamond tiles and palm-print wallpaper.

For the full seated dining experience with cocktails, the original location

remains at 5179 Telegraph Ave. in the Temescal District.

FOB Kitchen/FOB West is best known for a handful of core dishes that regulars

rave about.

Most-mentioned signatures

1. Pork adobo (slow-braised pork in palm vinegar, soy, garlic, annatto, often with
coconut milk and chiles).
2. Lechon kawali (thrice-cooked crispy pork belly with dipping sauce and pickles).
3. Shanghai lumpia (crisp pork-and-vegetable egg rolls with sweet chili sauce).
4. Sticky wings with patis caramel and house pickles.
5. Ensalada talong (eggplant salad with jicama, tomato, sea beans, and soy vinaigrette).
6. Garlic rice and adobo fried rice, often ordered with the mains.
7. Desserts like turon (fried banana rolls with ice cream) and halo‑halo-style sweets.

FOB Kitchen’s Bib Gourmand recognition

The Michelin Guide describes FOB Kitchen as a popular Filipino restaurant in Oakland’s Temescal neighborhood, born from a pop‑up and now known for its cozy island‑inspired
space, cocktails, and “menu loaded with keepers,” including specials like
sweet‑and‑sour sinigang with pork and Janice’s Ribs braised with coffee,
coconut beer and banana ketchup.
Coverage notes that the restaurant pairs vibrant, tradition‑rooted Filipino flavors
(pork adobo, lumpia, suman in banana leaf, etc.) with thoughtful plating and a lively, welcoming atmosphere, all at approachable prices, exactly what Bib Gourmand
is meant to reward: “good quality, good value cooking.”
FOB Kitchen publicly celebrated receiving the Bib Gourmand in the California
Guide and later posts highlight repeat recognition, underscoring that inspectors
see it as delivering this quality-value balance year after year.

Why Filipino food is surging in the Bay Area

A major driver is demographics and history: the Bay Area has one of the largest
Filipino populations in the U.S., with Daly City often called “Little Manila,” and
San Francisco’s Filipino food legacy stretching back over a century and now
anchored by districts like SOMA Pilipinas.
A data‑driven report on U.S. metros ranked San Francisco the number‑one city
for Filipino food based on restaurant numbers, awards, customer interest and
even Jollibee locations, reflecting both depth and visibility of the cuisine here.
On the demand side, research shows Filipino food interest in the U.S. has surged
(about 50 percent year‑over‑year in one trend report), with Gen Z especially
drawn to its bold, comforting flavors and budget‑friendly dishes, a shift amplified
by TikTok and Instagram.

Role of new-wave Filipino restaurants

High‑profile spots like Abacá in San Francisco bring Filipino‑Californian tasting
menus, ube cocktails, and sisig fried rice into an upscale setting, explicitly
aiming to show that Filipino food can be refined and ingredient‑driven,
not just “cheap eats.”
Together with neighborhood gems (FOB Kitchen, Señor Sisig, JT Restaurant
and many others), these restaurants give Bay Area diners everything from
traditional turo‑turo comfort food to modern small plates, helping Filipino cuisine
feel both familiar and exciting and fueling the current surge in attention.
My local favorite Filipino restaurant is Tropa in downtown Lafayette.
A Kamayan Pinoy Feast in the Philippines
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1431871328456500
Lastly, here's the summary of Episode 2 of
America's Culinary Cup, titled "Meat the First Commandment," Chef Kim Alter
was eliminated after failing to meet the specific requirements of a meat-centric challenge. The episode aired on March 11, 2026, and featured the remaining
12 chefs tackling the first of the show's "10 Culinary Commandments".
Challenge Overview: Mastering Meat
The episode was divided into two main parts focused on butchery and cookery.
- Part 1: Butchery Competition: Chefs worked in pairs to break down a
- 250-pound hind saddle of beef into specific cuts, including flank steak,
- New York strips, and filet mignons. Expert butcher Pat LaFrieda judged
- this segment, awarding points out of a possible 20.
- Part 2: The Carnivore Classic: In an individual challenge, chefs had to
- prepare a dish using one cut of meat—determined by their ranking in
- the butchery round—cooked two different ways. They served these
- dishes to over 100 guests at an outdoor event.
Results and Elimination
The chefs were evaluated on taste, presentation, creativity, and mastery of the
commandment (meat) by host Padma Lakshmi and judges Michael Cimarusti
and Wylie Dufresne.
- Winner: Matt Peters won the overall challenge.
- Bottom Three: Buddha Lo, Malyna Si, and Kim Alter received the lowest scores.
- Eliminated: Kim Alter was sent home. Her elimination resulted from a
- misunderstanding of the rules; she applied two types of cooking to the
- same piece of meat rather than preparing the meat in two separate
- ways as required.
Butchery Round Scores

Chef Pair Butchery Score (out of 20)
Beverly & Diana 14
Michael & Matt 12
Buddha & Cara 12
Emily & Chris 8
Katie & Keith 5
Kim & Malyna 3

MY Photo of the Day: Shrimp Pinakbet

Chef Pair	Butchery Score (out of 20)
Beverly & Diana	14
Michael & Matt	12
Buddha & Cara	12
Emily & Chris	8
Katie & Keith	5
Kim & Malyna	3 MY Photo of the Day: Shrimp Pinakbet

Guest Article from Susan Creamer Joy

In The Silence, by Susan Creamer Joy.

Today's guest article is from Susan Creamer Joy. Susan is one of my favorite authors in the ViewsHound community. Susan writes, draws, paints and cobbles together art from found objects making a variety of creations from jewelry to religious shrines. She frequently sports burns on her fingers from her soldering iron, paint on her palms and ink under her fingernails, but her hair is usually combed. When she is not losing time in the creative vortex of her studio, she is likely to be putting her knowledge of metaphysics and esoteric principles including Tarot, numerology, astrology and graphology to good use in consultations. Her children are grown, her husband still works and her four dogs believe she needs serious help. The title of her article is "A Matter Of Love And Death". Thank you Susan.

By the time they reached my bedroom door, I was already sitting up – my stomach ratcheted in the tense grip of an unnamed anxiety; my pillow, unburdened of my drowsy head.

To this day I cannot explain how I heard them coming up those stairs in their bare feet or how I knew that my father struggled to hold his composure as my mother unnaturally clutched at the folds of her dressing gown and followed him through the dark just a little too closely.

As the wooden groan of those old stairs tore into my bones that morning like a hacksaw, all I could see between the predawn shadows was the letter I’d written just hours earlier to my boyfriend, Chris, propped against the lamp on my desk across the room awaiting an envelope.

I had not slept well. It was late November and there had been so many changes since the middle of August when he left for the Air Force in Texas to begin basic training and I began my third new school in as many years.

The conspiracy between fate and the last surge of the Vietnam draft had broken apart the every-waking-minutes of our two-year union with unceremonious indifference. All that night my sleep had been infested by difficult dreams and by the illogical fear that truth and reality were merging into a darkness only a martyr could grasp; and at sixteen, martyrdom seemed reasonable only for the nuns among the poor in Bangladesh

I tried to remind myself that he would be home on leave for Thanksgiving in another few days. It was the only tether to calm I could find, but reviewing the facts offered little relief from my baseless fears.

Chris had been girding his pacifist sensibilities preparing to fight in an unpopular war that had not yet slaughtered its last innocent. I was hovering just over the line of inclusion at an exclusive girl’s school – missing him – and finding myself at odds with these young women and their attachment to propriety and with the prep-school veneer that blinded them to the fact that they were no better than anyone else.

Neither one of us was coping well with the worlds into which we were respectively summoned, and although we both knew that the best hope for any future together depended upon our individual successes apart, it was far from comforting most days.

But in spite of our discomfort, we each did our best; and, of course, there were the letters: Thin, plain-paper sheets with row after row after row of inky blue words penned with the intensity and awkward locutions of a love learned too soon. It had come down to just that little, but without them, I would have had nothing.

Chris was learning to fly. I was learning to drive, and both of us were aching to transport our souls to an earlier time through the hallowed intercourse of memories and dreams. Of course, as with all progress, there was the positive element: We were both clean and drug-free for the first time in years.

Now, without pretense, both healthy cognition and sincere motivation surfaced regularly in my psychology and prompted me to care about myself and to arbitrate against all temptation for a better standing in the world, in school and in my own eyes. I even did my homework.

No longer was I escaping today but, instead, living for my day of escape. Lying still in the dark of my room, I listened to the slow, padded footfall of my parents approaching and looked to the floor and to my history book half hidden beneath the nightstand where I’d tossed it the night before. Even in this early morning dark I could make out the swirls and stars in colored marker and the bubble-formed letters that spelled C H R I S in soft, juvenile curves on the torn book cover I’d fashioned out of a brown paper grocery bag.

I vaguely remembered throwing it there somewhat hastily. I had been doing my homework when a sense of urgency struck and I realized I had not written him as I promised I would and glancing at the clock, I noted it was nine-twenty-three. Why that mattered I had no way of knowing in that strange moment, but within hours, it would be one I would never forget; and although I was becoming drowsy and still needed to finish my work, I felt beyond reason that my letter to him could not wait.

So, I wrote. I would always write. I would always be there. He would always be there.“Suzi."It was my name spoken in the smooth and familiar voice of my mother, although weighted and slow, her head bowed to her chest almost as though she were speaking only to herself.

"Suzi.” She said it again, this time with sharp gravity, like a chisel against stone.

As if on cue, I leaned forward, flanked now by my parents who were sitting on either side of my bed.

I had been waiting for them. I don’t know how. I didn’t know why. The lights in my room remained off, but it seemed that the darkness clung more to them than to me, as though they were holding it there – away from me to give me enough light to see through the next moment. They were crying. My father was crying. My father. “Suzi. We have something very, very bad to tell you." Chris has been in a car accident." And he was killed."

If the world moved forward from that moment, I could not know it. f there were air around me worth breathing, I could not take it in. And if there were another sound beyond the leaden bellow of my own raw grief, I could not hear it.

"Who am I going to talk to? Who am I going to love?” I wailed. Who will love me? In that sodden moment violated by the intrusion of a predawn light that had no business rising, everything I ever believed about happiness, hoped for in life, trusted in or held as my own was annihilated.

After that – there was no after that. After that came months of hollow redundancies that would inform my way of being in the world for years to come. A serial commitment to waking up each morning, remembering he was gone and dedicating the remaining hours to forgetting. To that end I would try anything, drink anything, ingest anything, inject anything. It was a slow and arbitrary suicide by indifference.

Many years later, at 25 years-old and in the midst of a pharmaceutical free-fall leaning dangerously close to terminal, I discovered that I was expecting a child, and after a decade of forgetting, I remembered. I named him Griffin after the legendary winged lion, a symbol of the divine because what he inspired and the miracle that he was, were nothing less. I remembered and I loved again, and I went on to marry and to the gift of two beautiful daughters.

Today my son is struggling not to drown in the same well of drug abuse and apathy that almost swallowed me – his great, divine wings clipped by his own hand; and while it is up to him to restore his place in the sky, I will do my best to help provide an open runway.

In the meantime, I will continue soaring for both of us; bequeathed as I have been, with a determination to fly from a boy whose ragged fate precluded that dream.

Death took one young man from me once upon a dark time. If it has any intention of coming for this one, it will have to go through me. And trust me, it will be in for one hell of a fight.

Note: If you enjoy this article, please let me know.

Thursday, March 19, 2026

FOB Kitchen West- New Location in Oakland, CA

Most-mentioned signatures

Why Filipino food is surging in the Bay Area

Role of new-wave Filipino restaurants

Linkwithin