Filipino x American Food Truck & Catering
Banana lumpia. Tangy atchara. Rich sisig tacos that bring comfort from the first bite. These are the legacies of Barya Kitchen founder Rod Reyes and his mother’s memory. Reyes began cooking during a home economics class in middle school, moving on to cooking for close friends and family. As good as his experiments were, he says, “none of that food actually represented me as a person and as a cook.” It wasn’t until Reyes lost his mother that he began to cook the food he grew up with.
“My mom was always cooking,” he says. Birthdays, graduations, moments of grief – there she was, bringing the large family comfort. “When my mom passed, that realization kicked in almost immediately. It felt almost existential: I’m not gonna have my mom’s food ever again.” That’s when Reyes realized he needed to act quickly. “I started cooking my mom’s food simply because I missed it, immediately missed it.” Within a week of her passing, Reyes was trying to replicate her chicken adobo for just one more bite of his favorite dish, one that once soothed his hunger and eased his mind as a child.
He pauses, skeptical of himself. “I hate to say chicken adobo only because it’s such a cliche dish,” he explains. Every family makes it differently, even if they’re using the same ingredients, because of the methods and ratios and regional variations. “But, man, my mom’s ratio, when it came to chicken adobo, was like the most perfect balance of acidity, saltiness, and the pepperiness and the aromatic flavor from the bay leaf.”
As time went on, Reyes not only replicated his mom’s cooking. He made it so well his aunts and uncles tell him it’s just like his mom’s. “I’m pretty sure this was partially a coping strategy,” he reflects. “I didn’t know how to grieve the loss, but I was trying to [share] my mom’s cooking legacy.”
Barya also carries inspiration from other San José cuisines that Reyes grew up with. He’s taken the familiar Mexican, Vietnamese, and American styles and created his own version of traditional Filipino dishes. And he found a business partner and girlfriend, co-owner Selina Wong, through the business too. “She played a big role in keeping my dreams alive,” Reyes says.