Just in time for Prescott Market’s first anniversary, FOB West has joined the lineup of food vendors. Janice Dulce’s FOB Kitchen started as a pop-up in 2015, three years before opening in Temescal. Although Dulce wasn’t looking for another location, a friend of theirs who lives in West Oakland told them they should check the place out. “So then I go, and I fell in love with the space,” they said.

Dulce told me the new menu is more playful at the second location. “The FOB Kitchen menu is 100% Filipino,” they said. “FOB West is an homage to the places I grew up.” Nods to Guam include red rice, chicken kelaguen and dipping sauces like finadene, which is made with soy sauce and hot chili peppers.

“I also grew up in San Jose, in the 408,” Dulce said. “This past weekend we just put tacos on the menu.” The chef now makes vegan jackfruit adobo tacos and beef cheeks adobo, which come with Oaxacan cheese and a birria-inspired consommé.   

Shanghai lumpia—with pork, carrots and water chestnuts—has graced the menu since the pop-up started. “It’s crunchy. It’s fried. It’s delicious. It’s portable,” the chef said. “It’s the first thing at a ‘handaan’ buffet table, which is a Filipino party. You can grab a lumpia and take a bite of it while you’re filling your plate, right?”

The recipe is, word for word, Dulce’s grandmother’s. The chef, who’d been serving tables at Bar Crudo and Out the Door, decided to take a trip to the Philippines in 2015 to really pay attention to their grandmother’s cooking. “I’m having a grand opening on April 1, and my grandma’s going to be there. She’s 96,” Dulce said. “It’s really exciting that she’ll be able to see the second location, because she taught me how to roll lumpia.”

Pancit, a bowl of glass noodles with carrots, cabbage and green beans, is another dish Dulce’s been making since the pop-up. I tried it at Prescott and ate the entire bowl. Usually the dish is made with chicken or pork broth, but the chef makes a version of the dish that’s 100% vegan.

“A lot of people that would come in to try my food, vegans or vegetarians, they’re like, ‘Oh, I can’t eat Filipino food because there aren’t many options,’” Dulce said. The chef makes FOB’s pancit with roasted vegetables, kombu and a homemade vegetable stock. Carnivores, Dulce said, like it too and haven’t asked why there’s no meat in it.

Dulce’s fiesta plate is another “playful” dish on FOB West’s menu. “It’s a play on a holiday party plate if you were to go to my family’s house,” they said. “There’s dipping sauce, rice, a mixed-green salad, a protein and a potato or macaroni salad.” Serving food at the Prescott is also less formal than at FOB Kitchen. “It’s gotta be one plate.”

When Dulce first started to cook professionally, Filipino restaurants were harder to find than they are now. The chef said the food was primarily available at family parties, pop-ups and at restaurants with turo-turo steam tables. “Turo-turo means ‘pick-pick’ or ‘choose-choose’—there wasn’t much besides those places,” they said.

“When I opened my restaurant, I wanted to do something different,” Dulce said. At the time there were “cool” Thai and Italian restaurants but not Filipino ones. “Like a place where you can bring your friends and they’re playing cool music and there’s a really cool ambiance and decor.” At FOB Kitchen, Dulce wanted Filipinos and Filipino Americans to feel proud about bringing themselves and their friends in to introduce them to the food.

Filipino restaurants such as The Sarap Shop, Abacá and Tropa have since opened throughout the Bay Area. “I have a bunch of friends in the Filipino restaurant world,” Dulce said. “I’m proud of all of them, and I’m happy to be a part of the whole community. And I still haven’t tried Tropa yet, and I need to.”

FOB West, Prescott Market, 1620 18th St., Oakland. Open Tue-Sat, 10am to 9pm; Sun until 8pm. fobkitchen.com