Feature: Mila Nabor Cuachon and Casa Manila

Volume 3, Issue No. 50

OPINION/COMMENTARY

/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /

. . . . . A community service of The Filipino Web Channel (TheFilipinoWebChannel@gmail. com) and the Philippine Village Voice (PhilVoiceNews@gmail.com) for the information and understanding of Filipinos and the diverse communities in North America . . . . . .

 

Our latest as of Monday, May 9, 2022 

~ Just as popular as the Casa Manila restaurant is its CEO and creative director, Mila Nabor Cuachon - artist, interior designer, and a former beauty queen. Philippine diplomats and a small media group had the chance to talk with her over a meal of choice Filipino dishes one Friday afternoon at the end of the first-ever Filipino Restaurant Month in Toronto. In between bites, she related her story and the restaurant's in such candidness and great detail that made us dumbfounded. 

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CASA MANILA'S MILA NABOR CUACHON

A Life of Ironies and Contradictions 

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ 

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

"That is the happiest conversation where there is no competition, no vanity, but a calm quiet interchange of sentiments". - Samuel Johnson

TORONTO - The ironies and contradictions Ms. Mila Nabor Cuachon lived through the years make for great strides and are the very things that define her then and now as a person.

She and husband Rizalde Cuachon own and manage Casa Manila, the restaurant on York Mills Rd. that best recreates authentic Filipino food in an atmosphere that typifies upscale eateries in the homeland

On a recent visit there, Ms. Mila joined us - Consul General Orontes Castro, Consul Mary Grace Villamayor, and a small media group consisting of Baby K. Jimenez, the foremost entertainment writer; Michelle Chermaine Ramos, the remarkable multi-disciplinary artist and journalist; and this reporter. 

The schedule prepared by the Consulate was to visit three Filipino restaurants in the North York area - Casa Manila, Wilson Haus of Lechon, and Republika Restobar and Grill, in that order - on Friday, April 29, to wind up the month-long Filipino Restaurant Month, a joint project of the Department of Tourism, the Philippine Embassy in Ottawa, and the consulates in Toronto, Vancouver, and Calgary. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y9GuMe9HeI).

Casa Manila was our first stop. When we came in at noon, Rizalde was already entertaining a lady broadcaster, cameraman, and producer for another media entity. He interrupted their conversation to welcome us and directed us to the table where we would gather. 

Ms. Mila arrived at the resto almost at the same time we did but didn't join us right away as she was ushering customers. Once done, she seated herself beside Congen Castro facing us. The other media people occupied an adjoining table close enough to hear what was going on.

Soon after the initial courtesies, the stories began to flow. Ms. Mila was now presiding over a conversation - or was it a monologue? - that hovered between the private and personal to the more public aspect of her life made colorful by youthful inexperience and indecisions. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRjSJ2jdEk4).

The mouthwatering dishes were now being served but instead of the scrumptious food occupying our attention, the unexpected story-telling had begun. We were beguiled, even dumbfounded by her candidness in opening up about life's adventures from when she was a teenager on the cusp of making a big name for herself.

Quite an extraordinary day it was for us. What was meant to be a friendly lunch gathering to taste the food quickly turned into a juicy hours-long rap session. Her narrative, frank and uninhibited, was coming out in a steady stream, cut off only by arriving patrons.

Though unprompted, Ms. Mila had a lot to say about herself. Her enduring account is the spice of life that both teaches and enriches the heart and the soul.

Her presence made for a relaxed yet lively table talk, intuitive in fact, as she took us on a journey of her life, from childhood to teen years to capturing a beauty title to marriage to widowhood to remarriage to owning and managing Casa Manila, which is her outlet for the love of cooking and an artistic passion for design and fashion.

In all those times, the ironies and contradictions were there and she lived through them almost unscathed. Those appear to be the defining moment of her life.  

For example, she says she hated beauty contests but ended up joining one and winning the title. Archival records showed a disgruntled competitor had referred to the pageant as a "cattle market".

More than four decades ago, a young and comely Maria Milagros Guidote Nabor, crowned Miss Philippines beforehand, represented the country in the Miss World 1980 pageant in London, England.

A year prior, at age 19, the "Oriental beauty" (described by the Toronto Star) as she was, was named "Miss Filipinas Canada" in a contest held at the Royal York Hotel in downtown Toronto.

Ms. Mila happily recalls meeting with Agnes Miranda, the recently-elected president of Philippine Independence Day Council, who quipped upon seeing her: "Oh, you're very pretty, would you like to join a local beauty contest?" 

To which she replied, according to her: "No thanks. I'm already modeling and I don't believe in beauty contests because I was big when I was young".

"So I had a little bit of prejudice against beauty contests but she (Agnes) basically said to me, 'listen, if you win here you will go to the Philippines and you will compete in the Miss Philippines Universe blah blah blah'. x x x I was 19 then. And then I said, what are the prizes?" she laughs remembering the exchange.

Her glow hasn't changed much. The glory of yesteryears is very much with her. The looks, poise, confidence, and dignity of a queen are still striking. Her manner of speaking is that of an intellectual, which is consistent with her declaration that she "is a very strong believer in the power of the mind". 

Ms. Mila's life and love stories are stuff for a book and maybe a movie. Every little detail manifests a struggle for survival and recognition as a child growing up, as a beauty contestant, as a pageant queen, as a wife and mother, and as an entrepreneur staking a claim in a highly-competitive industry.

A visit to the restaurant on York Mills Rd. will confirm the artist in her. Native artworks and flowering greens adorned the incommodious setting, but who cares? The food is excellent, the ambience refreshing, and there's a quick dive into bits of Philippine history.

Ms. Mila says she comes from a family of cooks in Angeles, Pampanga. On yearly visits from abroad, she fell in love with Filipino food. At an early stage, however, she admits: "I didn't like Filipino food growing up. I didn't. Honestly, I preferred Chinese (food) because it was freshly cooked".

In the context of her owning Casa Manila, that statement is quite a revelation. And so, her utter dislike for Filipino food then has actually inspired her to strive for a more healthy regimen in preparing food at the resto.

She poses a rhetorical question: "Why is Filipino food unhealthy? Why is it that in my own family, there's heart disease, there's high blood? There's this, there's that, . . . diabetes. So I had to face it". 

She explains: "I bought a business and I don't want to buy food that kills you, 'cause I will not be successful. I'm a firm believer that you should not get into business unless you love your product. x x x I never wanted a Filipino restaurant. I'm more into design and fashion. I eat with my eyes . . .  I am aesthetic, meaning that my art is interiors". 

Surely, Casa Manila is there, a thriving mainstream restaurant that gives meaning to all that Ms. Mila has endeavoured to do . . . amidst the disdain she previously had. Life truly is a dichotomy. (Copyright 2022. All Rights Reserved).