Dana’s Restaurant and Catering keeps faith during trying times

Make up your mind before ordering at Dana’s Restaurant and Catering. Not about whether you want lechon kawali or pork adobo.

“Unless you specify, we cook everything Ilocano style,” owner Mely Ballocanag said firmly, with her trademark enthusiasm and wide smile. Ballocanag is proud of her Ilocano heritage.

For those who need a mini-tutorial in regional Filipino cuisine, she said traditional Ilocano cooking uses a seasoning base of bagoong isda (fish fermented in salt), while popular Tagalog- and Visayan-style cooking call for bagoong alamang (fermented shrimp paste).

The takeaway: Dana’s cooks everything fresh — and either way, the food is addictive.

One would never guess by Ballocanag’s cheery disposition how hard the 3-year-old Waipahu eatery has been hit by the pandemic.

“There was a 95% drop in business in March, April and May,” confided her friend Alisa Schoniwitz, who helps Ballocanag with paperwork. Prior to the coronavirus lockdown, she said, the restaurant was a gathering place. “She had free karaoke in here, and people would bring their own beer Fridays after work. Now, she has three to five takeout orders a day.”

Ballocanag laid off six workers, and the two women “applied at every single place for grant funding,” said Schoniwitz. A portion of one grant arrived, but the other applications received no response.

Ballocanag even launched a GoFundMe page on April 28. A sign of desperate times, it has not garnered a single donation.

The saving grace is the restaurant’s landlord, who has delayed rent payments indefinitely without penalty.

Ballocanag has set up her dining room for social distancing, but few dine in. “Now they come for takeout,” she said.

Regulars seek out the Kilawen Kalding, a marinated and grilled goat dish that draws customers from town. Beef Bulalo, a hearty shank soup crowded with cabbages and corn on the cob, is another favorite. For breakfast, there is traditional Tortang Talong, whole roasted eggplant, mashed, then dipped in an omelet mixture and fried.

While the menu is clearly Filipino-based, it also includes pasta dishes, and a loco moco lineup is coming soon.

But Dana’s is most famous for its kamayan boodle fight menu, a traditional meal of Filipino dishes spread directly onto a long table lined with banana leaves and eaten by hand. It’s not suitable for dine-in customers now, but families will occasionally order the meal to go.

Ballocanag started kamayan meals in 2018 after the family of a 97-year-old former plantation worker asked her to serve their meal on banana leaves. The man was homesick for the Philippines but too old to travel, and his family thought the gesture would ease his longing. She agreed.

“The man died three days later,” she said. “I’ve always believed eating together brings us closer.”

She also has faith her restaurant will be a gathering place again.

“I’m hanging in there,” she said. “I believe that it will come back. It will just take time.”

At 94-235 Hanawai Circle; temporary hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Call 677-2992 or visit danasrestaurantandcatering.com. Note: Following Google Maps will get you lost. Instead, google “Waipahu Festival Market.” Dana’s is on the other side of the market’s large parking lot, in a small strip mall. To make a donation, visit gofund me.com and search “Dana’s Restaurant and Catering.”