Pinoy Big Mouth brings authentic Filipino experiences to Wilmington

By Mark Siquig

May 05, 2024

Wilmington – On a Friday night down at Lomita Boulevard in Wilmington, California, Maria Domenden sang “Bakit Ikaw Pa? by Imelda Papin for her customers at Pinoy Big Mouth to encourage the customers to sing a song.

She is one of the owners of the Filipino street food pop-up shop that specializes in barbecue sticks like pork skewers, Filipino-style hot dogs and pork intestines. But they also serve grilled dishes like chicken “Inasal” and pork belly and have traditional Filipino dishes like “Abot Langit” which is a rice-based soup filled with lots of toppings.

“We have barbecues like in the Phillippines that you see outside the street but here it’s outside of a church,” Maria said. “We have a Filipino menu that feels like you are in the Phillippines.”

The menu offers plenty of other items like “Balut,” which is a fertilized developing egg embryo that is oiled or steamed and eaten from the shell and “Siomai,” a traditional Chinese dumpling that is popular amongst Filipinos.

But PBM is well known for its authentic street food experience as customers pick out barbecue skewers that cost $1.50 each and cook them in charcoal grills. According to apoy.co.uk, the street food culture in the Phillippines blew up in the 19th century and vendors would set up carts or stalls on the streets and sell grilled meats on skewers. You can find vendors everywhere in the Phillippines.

Maria’s husband, Tony Domenden, is the main founder of the shop as it was his dream to someday open a restaurant, and saw PBM as a stepping stone.

“I created Pinoy Big Mouth because Pinoy is short for Filipino and Big Mouth because Filipinos love to eat,” Tony Said. “I decided to open this restaurant because one time I was sitting on the couch and thought about what can I do more in the Filipino Community.”

He later started to work on his menus and his first idea was Filipino-style tacos. He served tacos that were paired with traditional Filipino dishes like Sisig, Chicken Adobo and even Caldereta. But it would later close down because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I said to myself, ‘Tacos were doing good but let me try something different so I created the “Goto Abot Langit’ and said let me try this,” Tony said. “And then I said to myself, ‘You know what let me add some barbecue as well to bring all the community down for all Filipinos.'”

After the pandemic, Tony and Maria would start Pinoy Big Mouth and are going for three and half years. They wanted to bring street food tradition over to the United States and help Filipinos connect to the Phillippines and the culture.

“Although I wasn’t born in the Phillippines, I’ve visited a couple of times and I loved it, going to Pinoy Big Mouth definitely reminds me and takes me back to when I did visit home in the Phillippines,” Jisselle Urmanita said.

She is a regular customer from Long Beach and comes down to the pop-up often with her cousins to connect with Filipino culture.

“I wasn’t born in the Phillippines, I definitely grew up with Filipino traditions and its my culture,” Urmanita said. “I love my culture and definitely want to connect with my culture more and Pinoy Big Mouth allows me to do so.”

Maria and Tony have created a community where all people, not just Filipinos, can come and enjoy their authentic Filipino street food, dishes and culture. Many people from surrounding cities have visited the shop because of word of mouth from other Filipinos.

“I don’t feel any difference when I’m here because it feels like you’re in the Phillippines, I never had a bad customer,” Maria said. “They are always understanding if there’s a line and I have very good customers, it’s like a family.”

Building a community where Filipinos can connect through food and entertainment like karaoke is the culture back in the Phillippines. Filipino immigrants don’t have the same luxury as other immigrants because their homeland is located across the world.

Pinoy Big Mouth is the place where these people can feel at home again, grilling barbecue skewers outside with other Filipinos.

“It feels good really, because the way I am looking at it, I’m creating a community because everybody talks about ‘let’s go to Pinoy Big Mouth’ and ‘let’s do barbecue’ and ‘let’s do karaoke’ so everything I feel good. So good about it,” Tony said.

Tony’s dream was to open a restaurant, he learned how to cook from his grandma and mother. After experimenting with tacos, he and his wife found a hit with Filipino street barbecue.

They said the desire to create a community for Filipinos in the area and how the restaurant has become a place where they can feel at home.

“I made something, I made my own [dishes] and I just twisted it,” Tony said. “My dream is to open up a restaurant and one day it will happen.”