\u201cWhen she came back to Long Beach, that’s when she understood where her heart was. And she was like, \u2018I want to do Filipino food.\u2019 I want to elevate and show that my cuisine can be something more than just street food or communal style,\u201d Lach said. \u201cShe really just wanted to expose everybody to what her culture meant to her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cabaysa found her culinary sanctuary in 2019 at Bebot, a new, contemporary Filipino-fusion restaurant owned by lauded chef, AC Boral.<\/p>\n
As Bebot\u2019s Chef de Cuisine, Cabaysa was a force in the kitchen\u2014 sharp, focused, tenacious\u2014but governed with kindness and empathy. Her approach fostered a familial feeling within the kitchen, one that linked her and her fellow colleagues\u2014Dintemann, Lach, Fama and Soshana Ybarra\u2014inextricably.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was the cheerleader,\u201d Fama said. \u201cShe was always the one that believed in all of us the most. She saw a version of us that I\u2019m not sure we all saw yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
But in August 2020, just before Bebot\u2019s one-year anniversary, the restaurant was destroyed in an accidental fire<\/a> and closed, launching the team into freefall in an industry hit hard by the pandemic.<\/p>\n \u201cThe kitchen was home. We were there more than we were at our own homes, literally we went home to sleep. So that was definitely a sense of loss,\u201d Dintemann said in an interview with the Long Beach Post<\/a> in May.<\/p>\n Knowing they had something special, the group stuck together and started baking, using Cabaysa\u2019s and Dintemann\u2019s shared apartment as their home base and test kitchen. Cabaysa went back to her familial roots: doughnuts.<\/p>\n https:\/\/lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/the-corner-stoop-pop-up-bebot-fusion-food<\/p>\n But Cabaysa was always quick to correct that their pop-up, Dig the Stoop\/Corner Stoop\u2014the titles were a merger of Cabaysa\u2019s culinary ventures and Dintemann\u2019s own catering business, though most refer to the pop-up as The Corner Stoop\u2014was more than just doughnuts. Which was true, the group had expanded their menu to breakfast and lunch with signature dishes that blended their respective cultures; Filipino, Cambodian, American.<\/p>\n But Cabaysa\u2019s doughnuts were showstoppers: iced and decorated with an artist\u2019s ego, with bold flavor combinations that only a confident, experienced chef would dare execute. Her strawberry, lemon-thyme and ube white chocolate with toasted marshmallow and oatmeal crumble doughnuts stood out in display cases and were greedily consumed.<\/p>\n \u201cThings needed to be a bit bougie, because she was bougie,\u201d Dintemann said, laughing.<\/p>\n Reimagining the way people tasted and experienced Filipino food was a core mission to The Corner Stoop and Cabaysa thought endlessly of how to achieve this. Before her passing, she was only two weeks away from revealing one of her most ambitious menus yet, a fine dining Filipino brunch service at Lacquered on Broadway.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was so excited, so proud,\u201d Dintemann said.<\/p>\n Those who knew Cabaysa were all touched by her generosity and devotion to uplifting and supporting her communities. Whenever the chef had any bake sale, cook-out, or extravagant home-cooked meal\u2014of which there were many\u2014Lach said Cabaysa would deliver plates to her older brother and his two daughters in Laguna Beach with more frequency during the pandemic.<\/p>\n \u201cShe just wanted to make sure that people had comfort while the world was falling apart,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n In April Cabaysa organized a multi-vendor food pop-up at St. Lucy Catholic Church to help raise money for Asian organizations amid a recent increase of anti-Asian hate crimes in other parts of the country.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/img.lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/23115735\/Chef-Janice-3-1110x747.jpg\")