Lumpia Queen
By Scott Millsop
Lumpia Queen
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There is good news for the downtown dining crowd! Lumpia Queen has opened at the corner of Second Street and Jefferson. It’s an affordable option from 10:30 to 7. It’s colorful and flavorful and friendly and convenient. It’s a block from The Schuster Center, at street level in the Stratacache Tower. In a generally hollowed out urban landscape, it has the vibe of a city coming back to life. It is welcome. It is needed.
Let’s start with pronunciation. “Lumpia” has the sound of “heirloom”. L-o-o-m-p-i-a. It feels like singing. And it’s an appropriate word to model because lumpia is a long time fixture in Filipino life. Cathy – the owner, the Lumpia Queen herself – explains that you will find lumpia at any sort of gathering, on every celebration table, in all food presentations. It’s much the same as pasta in an Italian context, and just like pasta, lumpia has many variations.
Photos by Bobby Tewksbury
It’s a crispy, crunchy, golden-brown, delicate, flaky, aromatic, comforting, flavorful, satisfying. At Lumpia Queen it is a hand rolled, finger sized, crackling wrap of savory goodness. It is stuffed with pork or beef or chicken on the menu. But it might also be filled with apple and let me tell you it’s delicious that way. They stuffed it with strawberries and cream at a Miami County Food Competition and won first place. Note that this happened in Troy, home of the Strawberry Festival. Adobo and barbeque sticks are also part of the fare.
You might already know them from two brightly colored food trucks that energize rallies. You might have tasted their offerings at this year’s Porch Fest. There is a location on base at Wright Patterson. For a couple of years Lumpia Queen was a booth at West Social Tap and Table before moving downtown to make the jump to a standalone location.
This is a near classic immigrant restaurant story. It began in a home kitchen. Cathy had a career going in a tech environment, and her husband Damon worked at Wright Pat, a place with lots of gatherings. She brought lumpia to parties at the base. It was a novelty. A favorite. And soon there was demand. It took on a catering identity. And then it found a spot on base for food court type of location. There was a Lumpia Queen food truck that rotated to different locations on the base. They packaged and sold frozen lumpia for a while. Now there are Filipino flags on a major intersection downtown. There is outdoor seating, indoor comfort and a growing relationship with Door Dash for people who don’t want to leave their offices.
You will hear someone say there is a parking problem downtown. Nonsense. Not here anyway. Lumpia Queen is directly below a parking garage, there is a ground level lot around the corner, and plenty of on-street parking including directly in front of the building.
When we met to set up the Ethnosh event the restaurant was newly opened and training was taking place. Cathy said, “We need people who know how to roll.” She was talking about lumpia but it was clear that she was talking about growth and community. She’s excited.