If you have lechon on your table, that means you're having a grand moment.

You're having a great time.

I love lechon, and it's one of my favorite dishes.

There's a lot of Filipino restaurants in Hawaiʻi that are popping up nowadays.

Crunchy texture on the outside, but it's really juicy.

Good food can never go wrong with lechon.

ʻONO!

Hawaiʻi's Food Culture, sponsored by Hawaii Gas, Lokahi Federal Credit Union, and Hawaii Dental Service.

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We're here at Ono Grinds and Makeke Farmers Market here in Wai Kai, Ewa Beach, and now what we're selling.

So we are selling our authentic lechon pork belly from the Savellano's.

Eloisa and her family are just one of many Filipino food vendors here on Oʻahu.

Lechon, or Filipino roasted pig, is the star of this menu.

Right now, we have our three major plates, like the lechon rice, and the second plate is going to be our lechon with pancit as a side, and a complimentary lumpiang shanghai, and our bestseller too, the pancit with garlic shrimp.

And also for everybody who's really really craving for lechon, we're selling lechon by pound.

They really really love how tender it is, how juicy, and also they've been coming back, and we cannot even keep up with the demand.

And we're so blessed and humbled by that.

So good.

Canʻt get anything like this back home.

The first Filipinos were recruited in 1906 from a rural area of the Philippines called Ilacos Norte, hired as unskilled laborers.. The earliest record of Filipinos in Hawaiʻi dates back to 1906, and this is because of the boom in the sugar industry that started with the California and Hawaii Sugar association.

Like other ethnic groups, Filipinos looking to earn money found work on Hawaiʻi's sugar plantations.

These Filipino laborers were called the Sakada.

For the next 40 years, up until 1946, over 100,000 people came that were Filipino in descent to come to Hawaiʻi and work, as well as migrate with their families eventually.

Reading "America is in the Heart" is the first time I saw or read any literature written by a Filipino, and I got to see not just myself but mainly my family, my grandparents.

So when they came to Hawaiʻi in the 1920s, so they were part of the Sakada group, the first wave.

Next year will be about 100 years that I've been, my family has been in Hawaiʻi.

The Sakada were able to thrive in Hawaiʻi, sharing all aspects of their culture, including food.

Up until today, you have one in four people who are of Filipino descent or mixed race.

That alone tells you how much of the community that has been built here in Hawaiʻi.

Kamayan is a term that we use to use our hands to be able to eat and gather in one space and be able to talk, and that's kind of also what people did in the plantations as well.

We have our pancit bihon, chicken papaya, squid guisado, chicken adobo, mungo bean soup.

I was born and raised in the Philippines, and we love Filipino food.

We grew up with it, and our parents always adore cooking it.

At eateries like Yumyum Tumtum, customers include Filipinos and folks of other ethnicities.

It's a reflection of the growing popularity of Filipino food.

A lot of our customers doesn't only target the Filipino communities.

We are proud to say that we also have a lot of local patronage.

The rise of Filipino food was in Hawaiʻi, I think, is contributed to several different things.

There's the rise in Filipino chefs.

Sheldon Simeon, who's from Maui, also brought Filipino food again to the forefront, to the mainstream.

But I think a lot of Filipinos in Hawaiʻi are craving like identity and and to be proud of something.

Jayce's menu features many Filipino staples, with lechon being one of their most popular items.

Lechon actually came from roasting pig.

It's a Spanish tradition that.

Actually, was given to us during the time of Spanish colonization, but there are so much ways to cook lechon, and one of them is lechon kawali, which is what we serve now.

Lechon kawali is actually deep frying the lechon instead of roasting it traditionally.

These are the aromatics that we actually use.

This will enhance all the flavor to give that belly the best flavor that it would get.

So the aromatics now going into the boiling water.

Now we're gonna put all our pork belly as well.

Once it's finished, we will start baking it, and from there, it goes to the next process, which is the best part: the deep frying of the pork belly.

Okay, we have our ready deep-fried pork belly that was fresh off the fire.

Keep in mind, it was done for 15 minutes, deep fried, and it's ready to be chopped up and served.

We have here our tomato onion salsa, and then our spicy signature vinegar.

The best way to eat this is you just put it all together like a salad.

Dump all of your tomato onion in it, and drizzle it with your favorite signature Yumyum Tumtum spicy vinegar, and it's ready to serve.

Lechon isn't just a pork dish; it's a glimpse into Filipino culture.

Every crispy bite, a reminder of Hawaiʻi's rich Filipino heritage.

Never did we imagine that we would be serving lechon because we didn't grew up with it because we were poor.

So having the luxury to now create that moment and could try lechon any day is a blessing.

From the Philippines, you are coming from really humble beginnings.

You have a lot of family members that would want to see you succeed, so they kind of push you to do better, searching for greener pastures like the Filipinos in 1906 coming to Hawaiʻi.

I remember at our food truck, somebody ordered lechon.

Two years later, this couple came and said we were here two years ago during our wedding, and we just want to let you know that our guests were so happy to enjoy your lechon, and we're here again with their firstborn baby.

That is so so.

I got so so emotional with it because it was really a testament that good food can never go wrong with lechon.