Manong Ken's Carinderia is Featured in Link Magazine

Here's the full review in What's Cooking? section of the now defunct Link magazine, a then new Filipino magazine of about the Net (May/June 1997):

This site emanates from the Tribung Pinoy homepage, which is maintained by Ken Ilio, a Filipino based in Northwestern University who's already something of a legend in cyberspace.

What's interesting here is that it presents a view of Filipino culture (in terms of cuisine) not from the eyes of someone familiar with it but with a foreign perspective. In the "Introduction of sorts to Filipino Cuisine" link, New York food critic, Barbara Costikyan, finds that Filipino food is " ... sophisticated and exotic." The Frugal Gourmet, Jeff Smith, describes it as not being "... a cuisine that can be called 'high class,' but it is a cuisine that can be called delicious." He elaborates further by enumerating the recipes and commenting on the dishes he likes. Kare kare, or oxtails cooked with tripe in peanut sauce is his favorite. The lumpias, he finds, are heavenly, and the chicken and pork adobo is simple and sensational. Unfortunately, it seems that Pinoy food is not as popular in other countries as other Southeast Asian cuisines, such as Thai.

Others' point of view are given in the "Filipino Cookbooks' section. Each cookbook enumerated is accompanied by a short review.

Helpful hints in preparing the food are given in such links as "Hard to Find Ingredients? Substitue!" For achuete (atsuete), one can use food coloring or, in the pansit molo situation, paprika will do. Dried lily blossoms may be used instead of bulaklako ng saging.

A commonly ignored aspect of eating is the presentation. It isn't ignored in the site. There are many pictures of food settings, including some nerdy photos of people hanging around the buffet table. A sight much seen in many Pinoy family gatherings.

The backgrounds of the pages are representations of tablecloths made of exotic Filipino textiles such as jusi. Most impressive, though, are the pictures of the veggies in the "Philippine Vegetables, Fruits and Spices - A Sampler" section. These are not photographs. The vegetables are were scanned.

The graphic can get a little goofy, though. The "Philippine Ingredients" link has a section for patis. When you click on it, what you get is a picture of a bottle of Rufina with a cryptic caption saying, "condiment made from fish drippings."

All in all, a pretty good site. The next step would be for Ken Ilio to arrange for us to taste and smell the food through our PCs.