In the Chinoy household, moms are highly revered because they are very good cooks. They can cook up a feast with very little effort. Linda Co happens to be one such Chinoy mom. Having five children, she found joy in feeding them good food. It was her best expression of love, and Sundays, when the whole family would gather together for lunch and dinner, were her “feasting” days. Since her children were growing up in a digital environment, they kept posting the food that mommy had cooked for them. Their social media platforms were flooded with mouthwatering photos of Chinese lumpia, traditional Chinese misua, Fortune Bags, crab with sotanghon, curry crabs, fish maw soup, and other delicious Chinoy dishes.
“Soon, our friends started commenting and saying that we should start selling them. Since my mom was retired and she had lots of time on her hands, we collectively decided to just go for it. My mom cooked, and I was the one tasked to post on Facebook and Instagram and manage orders,” explains Oliver Allan Co, the youngest among the five siblings.
Thus, China Mommy was born in 2016. Obviously, the persona behind China Mommy was Linda.
“China Mommy is my mom. She’s a Filipino-Chinese mom who loves to cook for her children and for her temple mates. She goes to the Chinese temple and cooks for her friends there on weekends. She’s full of energy and is funny in her own ways,” Oliver adds.
The orders kept coming, all made online, especially for the signature dishes of China Mommy. Their Chinese lumpia was a big platter that came in a set — with ground peanuts mixed with sugar, crispy bihon mixed with hoti seaweed, minced garlic, fresh lettuce and wansuy, and brown sauce.
The thrill is in assembling the lumpias for a well-rounded eating experience. Even the traditional Chinese misua came complete with roasted peanuts with skin, on as well as chopped spring onion for sprinkling on top before serving. Such attention to detail is something you would certainly appreciate.
China Mommy’s Fortune Bags are also something to reckon with. They are a mixture of minced pork, seafood, mushrooms and vegetables wrapped in tofu skin to look like money bags and then steamed. There are now several variants of this dim sum-type dish, such as Vegetarian Fortune Bags, Truffle Mushroom Fortune Bags and Crab Meat Fortune Bags.
There are now also so many “flavors” of crabs to choose from, and the whole menu of China Mommy has expanded to include such dishes as kiampung, kikiam, maki, lomi, prawn dishes, soups like sibut soup (herbal soup with black chicken) and Taiwanese porkchops.
Most of the recipes have been passed on from Oliver’s angkong (grandfather) and ahma (grandmother), and the Taiwanese stuff are dishes Linda learned to make from her trips to Taiwan.
Most orders are still coursed online. But China Mommy now has a pick-up point for orders made through 0917-5148540, and they have a physical branch at The Grid, Power Plant Mall, Rockwell Center, Makati.
This physical store they opened in late 2022 to make their food available to the Makati clientele so that they, too, may be able to enjoy good food just the way mama cooks it.
