When Philippines-native Ayie Acierto moved to Houston, she was disappointed by the selection of Filipino restaurants.
The labor-intensive cooking process might tempt others to resort to frozen or pre-prepared ingredients, she said.
“It’s so embarrassing for us to go to Filipino restaurants because she tries to teach the people how to make the food, and she has comments on every single dish,” Acierto’s daughter Shana Stevenson said. “The other ones are franchises or buffets, so [Ayie’s is] very different.”
The mother-daughter duo opened Ayie’s Traditional Filipino-American Food with family friend Dan Whitcher in summer 2017. Several dishes on the menu are recipes passed down from Acierto’s grandmother that she said have been modified over the years.









