RESTAURANT NEWS | FLORIDA
A $20 Box of Filipino Street Food Lands in Downtown Sarasota
Owner Patrick Takano built the fast-casual spot around one idea: a box you build yourself.
TASTES OF THE PHILIPPINES | MAP | INSTAGRAM
By Maria Rodriguez
6:48 a.m. ET, Nov. 6, 2026
AUTHOR BIO: With a day job that requires constant travel, Maria Rodriguez is likely a regular at your favorite restaurant. She’s reviewed restaurants since 2007 in magazines from Spain to Seattle.
There’s a simple idea behind Tastes of the Philippines, the Filipino spot that opened recently in downtown Sarasota: It’s a box that costs $20 and holds one protein, garlic fried rice, two lumpia, and two turon, everything made from scratch and cooked over open flame. You order at the counter, and the food is prepared in front of you while you wait, the skewers charred on the open flame. Patrick Takano compares the setup to Fresh Kitchen or Cava, except the kitchen is from scratch and the business is his own.
The chicken adobo is braised in soy, vinegar, garlic, and bay leaf until the sauce turns to a glaze. The pork belly lechon kawali is simmered, then deep-fried, so the meat stays tender and the skin crackles. The chicken Filipino BBQ skewers come charred off the flame, and the longanisa is the sweet, garlicky sausage of a Filipino breakfast plate. There is an adobo tofu skewer too, for the one vegetarian in the party.
Around the box, the menu runs to pancit bihon, sinigang, and Ilocos empanadas, with an ube matcha latte and a drink called Filipino Drip alongside. The lumpia are thin, crisp spring rolls, and the turon, banana in a spring-roll wrapper fried until the sugar caramelizes, closes the box as dessert.
The space is small, on the first floor of the Courthouse Centre, and the build-out ran about $200,000. The decor leans on natural materials, meant to reflect the culture of the Philippines. Takano runs it with two longtime business partners, Conor Doherty and Conor McHugh, and most of the staff is Filipino, a deliberate choice, Takano said, so the flavors stay genuine.
The soft-opening weekend drew more than 1,000 people, and Takano was surprised by it himself. “I didn't realize exactly how many Filipinos lived in Sarasota,” he told the Herald-Tribune. “I would say about 70 percent of the people who stopped were of that heritage.”
Takano has talked about franchising the idea, perhaps starting with a second location in Bradenton. For now, though, it is one small space on Ringling Boulevard and a $20 box.
