Paolo’s Dine-In is for family
By Will Tigley
Paolo’s Dine-In is a family affair. Serving traditional and contemporary Filipino dishes, the restaurant on Heritage Drive and Fairmont Drive SE is run by a mother and son team.
Rose Enriquez and her son, Eugene, started Paolo’s as a chance to build a business for their family. Named after Rose’s younger son, the restaurant’s success means a future for the family.
“We wanted to do this as a family business,” explains Rose. “The recipes are our own. My son is a chef, from the Culinary Campus at SAIT so this is his chance to show what he can do.”
While Rose brings a lot of the traditional Filipino dishes to the menu, her son is responsible for some of the more innovative fusion dishes on the menu.
With experience working at Japanese restaurants and working under talented chefs, Eugene has developed a taste for Japanese flavours. One of the most notable dishes on Paolo’s menu is the Filipino Ramen developed by Eugene which is available on Thursdays and Fridays due to the intricate preparation required for the dish.
“With the menu I wanted to bring a different style and my individuality to it,” says Eugene. “A lot of the flavours I use are familiar to Filipinos, so I want to try something new. Something where people will say, I didn’t know you could do this dish in this version or style.”
Eugene’s ramen is one of those dishes that he hopes will expand horizons. Available in flavours, chicken Inasal, curry and adobo, Eugene uses a traditional pork broth for the noodle soup, but infuses it with strong Filipino flavours with thin noodles.
On the menu there are plenty of other influences from Eugene’s experiences. One glance at the menu and it is clear there are Singaporean influenced dishes, laksas, fish balls, and chicken rice.
“I worked in a lot of western-style restaurants,” says Eugene. “When we started Paolo’s I wanted to do something that represents me as a Filipino and also inject a lot of my experiences in the food.”
Born in Manila, the Enriquez family lived in Singapore while Eugene was young and he got to experience a variety of different foods.
“We would often go to the hawker market in Singapore and with it being so close to the bus station we experienced a lot of street foods,” says Eugene. “There were so many cultures there that I got to try, so many different kinds of food that we incorporated into our menu.”
The street food inspiration is seen throughout the Paolo’s menu. While it’s heavily influenced Eugene’s contributions to the menu, it is also in Rose’s more traditional dishes which makes up the majority of the menu.
Rose points to her two best-selling dishes, the Chicken Inasal and the Crispy Diniguan. On top of that she’s also added some of her favourite dishes like her Everlasting, a chilled dish made of ground pork and a mix of spices, and her sisig bulalo. Combined with a side of qwek qwek or okoy and it represents Rose’s cooking history.
“Cooking is my zen,” explains Rose who stepped away from her career as a dental hygienist to start this venture with her son. “I’m a home-trained cook with most of my inspiration coming from my father.”
Now Rose and her son are cooking side-by-side, with Eugene learning what he can about traditional Filipino food just by watching his mother.
Using her family recipes to build Paolo’s Dine-In, Rose knows that the focus of the restaurant is on family, and not just her own.
“Our philosophy is, ‘Where every single customer is family to us,’” explains Rose. “We want our customers to feel at home when eating our food. If we can make them feel like family, then they’ll come back.”
This philosophy is built from something that Rose’s father used to tell her: Don’t think about the taste so much as the people eating the food. Thinking about people will bring out the taste that they will like.
To become part of the Paolo’s Dine-In family, visit their restaurant or search for them on Facebook.
Photo Captions:
Rose and Eugene Enriquez want to treat you like family with their food.
Rose’s Everlasting — chilled ground pork with a family made mixture of spices.
One of the best-selling dishes is the CHicken Inasal.
Fusing two great foods together with Eugene’s Filipino Ramen.
Crispy Karaage is another Japanese inspired dish Eugene has included on the menu.
