PHOENIX (AZFamily) — A new restaurant in central Phoenix will make you feel like you have stepped into the Philippines.
Tambayan Filipino Food opened last year near 15th Avenue and Camelback Road.
The restaurant offers an array of authentic homemade Filipino food, desserts, snacks, and drinks that you can find on the streets of the Philippines.
“We cook our food, we want to serve it hot and fresh. We make all our food from scratch here in house from the sauces to marinating to cooking, we make everything here,” said Joann Tagorda, who owns the restaurant with her husband, Denver. “Majority of our food, we make them from scratch. We wanted to keep it authentic Filipino food.”
The couple started their food business in 2021, selling meals from their food truck at Asian festivals around the Valley.
Joann says the goal was always to have a restaurant, and they opened their doors in June 2024. They still have their food truck for events but now share their food with the Phoenix community through their restaurant.
“We just love to eat, and we love to cook, so that’s how we started. It’s our passion,” said Joann.
Tambayan, in Filipino, means “to hang out or chill,” and the restaurant offers tasty, mouthwatering dishes, platters and desserts that will leave you wanting more.
Everything is made from scratch. They offer popular Filipino dishes like pancit, which is Filipino stir-fried and flour noodles, lumpia, adobo, chicken BBQ skewers and the sizzling sisig, which is made with pork belly, onions, ginger, a tangy dressing and topped with a raw egg that’s cooked when mixed around.
A highlight of Tambayan’s menu is its platters, which can feed 4-6 or 8-10 people.
The breakfast platter includes an eggplant omelet, longganisa (Filipino sweet sausage), beef tapa (or pan-fried Filipino beef jerky), hot dogs, fried milkfish, spam, garlic rice, fried eggs, lumpia and a mixture of diced tomato, onion, and green mango.
The family plater consists of BBQ sticks, chicken inasal, which is grilled lemongrass chicken thigh, fried milkfish, tortang talong (eggplant omelet), lumpia, pancit, garlic rice and veggie mixture.
All of Tambayan’s desserts are made in-house from scratch.
Try the Halo Halo or the Filipino Shave ice for a refreshing treat. The dessert comes in a single size or a sharable family size in a giant cup! The Halo Halo has shaved ice with tapioca, gelatin, sweetened red mung beans, and homemade ube (purple yam) ice cream.
Other desserts include tiramisu cake, ice cream, rice cakes, and deep-fried and caramelized sweet potatoes and banana skewers, which are available on the weekend.
Tambayan also offers sweet and flavorful drinks, such as the Ube Horchata, a homemade cinnamon rice drink with ube, the Kalamansi juice, and the Sago-Gulaman, a brown sugar drink with gelatin and tapioca pearls, commonly found on the streets of the Philippines.
“All the very popular street food in the Philippines you can find here,” said Joann.
Besides the tasty food, Tambayan has other elements that embrace the Filipino culture. Located in the back corner of the restaurant is a little wooden building called the “Tambayan Sari-Sari Store.” The store sells snacks, candy and other merchandise shipped from the Philippines.
Joann says the store is part of Filipino culture, as these mini grocery stores are typically found outside of homes in neighborhoods of the Philippines. She says the stores are like a source of living, as there are no big grocery stores or malls, so families will sell canned goods, snacks or basic necessities in the little store in front of their homes. The mini store inside Tambayan symbolizes that part of life in the Philippines.
An activity in the restaurant is karaoke, which is very popular in Filipino culture. Tambayan offers karaoke every day from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., where customers can go to the mic and sing their favorite song.
“When they (customers) enter, they kind of like feel like they made a short trip to the Philippines, like where there’s a Sari Sari store, there’s like Filipino street foods, all traditional Filipino foods, and of course karaoke,” said Joann. “You can experience the Philippines in our restaurant, all the traditional authentic Filipino food we serve in here.”
Tambayan Filipino Food
Location: 1534 W Camelback Rd, Phoenix, AZ 850151534 W Camelback Rd, Phoenix, AZ 85015
Hours:
- Monday to Saturday: 11 a.m.-9 p.m.
- Sunday: 11 a.m.-7 p.m.
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