when you want, where you want.
A Filipino Take on Pho
Photo: Courtesy Swabe Food Truck
When Mark Mendoza — who goes by Macky — was planning out the menu for Swabe, the food truck he opened in Elmhurst at the end of the summer, he knew he’d need to include the Filipino soup chao long Palawan, even though he hated it when he was 7. The island was a first stop for refugees of the Vietnam War, and its capital, Puerto Princesa, was home to a refugee center that housed thousands of people at a time. Though many of the refugees would resettle in the West, some opened noodle shops where they served pho, which the locals started calling chao long. “Filipino dishes aren’t usually spiced heavily with cinnamon, cardamom, and clove; we don’t do that. So I hated chao long pho,” Mendoza says. That changed when he tasted the soup as adapted by locals who made the broth richer and sweeter, adding tomato sauce, annatto, or beef stew: “That’s when it became my favorite.”
At Swabe, which Mendoza runs with three other partners, the plastic bowls of chao long are packed with crunchy bean sprouts, mint and scallions, a whole lot of rice noodles, and tender cuts of beef shoulder. The broth is sweet and beefy in a way that only comes from time well spent on the stove. You can have this soup on the side of Queens Boulevard, where the Swabe truck is parked Monday through Saturday outside an old church with a nice green lawn. The sidewalk is wide enough to set up a handful of camping chairs, and there are a few squat folding tables, too, big enough for a couple of dishes. It feels less like a food truck and more like a street restaurant.
Mendoza’s other partners in the truck include Alexander Mendoza, his cousin and the truck’s social-media czar; Jericho Ensoy, his nephew; and John Fuentes, a fellow chef Mendoza worked under at a Chelsea wine bar. That wasn’t the only former job that provided valuable experience ahead of opening Swabe. Mendoza also spent time at P.F. Chang’s (“I really wanted to work there because I wanted to learn the wok — it’s very fascinating. It’s hot, it’s fast.”) and helped to open Naks with Eric Valdez and Unapologetic Foods, developing the menu and plotting his next move.
It was over drinks in his cousin Alexander’s backyard, where they barbecue with friends and family almost every Sunday, that they decided it was time. A restaurant seemed too expensive, and a food truck seemed more realistic. Last year, they found a used one in a commissary garage operated by a friend.
The chao long is one of just eight dishes they’re serving at Swabe. “It’s simple and honest Filipino food, man,” says Valdez — who is not involved in the truck but considers himself a fan. “We need more Filipino restaurants like that here,” he adds. He talks up the pares mami, another soup with egg noodles and brisket braised with garlic, onion, ginger, star anise, and soy sauce. It’s a dish that Mendoza discovered via street vendors when he was working in call centers in Manila. “I want it to be the same as what I had outside of our office, but even better,” he says.
Fried pork belly is offered with rice or as a sandwich. Lumpia is present, of course, and then there’s the beef tapa, the dish that Fuentes is most responsible for. “It took me maybe 20 times to get it right,” he says. Sliced beef is marinated in soy sauce, sugar, and calamansi juice before it’s fried, and it arrives perfumed with garlic and almost caramelized. It’s offered traditionally (with rice, a fried egg, cucumber, vinegar, and tomato) or in the form of a messy sandwich that could rescue you from an otherwise bleak day.
For Fuentes, the truck has been redemptive. Professionally, things had gone south for him since the pandemic. For a time, he’d left restaurants completely to work at food-production companies. “I am really grateful to these people, Macky and Alexander, who tried to build me back up again and make me whole again. To cook again,” he says. “At the end of the day, it’s for the common good. Macky loves seeing people happy. So do I, like those two,” he says, nodding to two friends hunched over their chao long Palawan. The soup was, clearly, doing them good.
Related