Famous Mayettes Restaurant
3331 Danforth Ave.
Toronto, ON
M1L 1C5
(416) 463-0338
Rating:
5 out of 5 stars
(
1 reviews)
Hours: 11am to 7 pm
Description
Mayettes Fine Foods offers these services: restaurant.
by ourbis
on August 29, 2013 from ourbis
Reviews
A True Story of the Payoff for hard work and determination: Mayette Murillo is living her dream. The tireless entrepreneur and owner of Mayettes Fine Foods on the Danforth believes that her determination, hard work and unwavering faith in God helped her get to where she is today. The seventh child of fourteen siblings, Mayette grew up in a sleepy fishing village where she helped sell her father’s daily catch at the local market. Walking through rice paddies with her load of fish, Mayette recalls looking up at the sky and seeing planes glide overhead. She promised herself, “one day I’ll fly away and discover the world too! I’ll be someone some day!” <br/><br/>The incessant heat, back-breaking labour and predictability of village life in the Philippines made her sit up and pay notice when her mother said, “you either choose to go to school and dedicate yourself to your studies or you find yourself a husband and raise a family. But you can’t do both!” She took those words to heart and after high school, made her way to Manila with an older brother. She carried with her a mere two outfits in a bag and not one peso in her pocket. “I prayed every day and said, God, just help me get to Manila. I’ll work hard, study hard and be someone some day.” <br/><br/>True to her word, Mayette completed a business administration program, eventually working for United Nations offices in Manila. It was during this time that she met the man that would be her husband. When she moved to Canada with her then-husband in 1980, Mayette always cooked for new friends as a way to gather people around her home. They kept encouraging her to open a restaurant; they planted the seed but Mayette wanted a ‘sign’ that this was the right move. “I prayed to God to give me a sign and that night I dreamt I was watching a space shuttle launch from Cape Canaveral. There were presidents from all over the world there, Princess Diana was there and so many famous people. We were all clapping during lift off and I took that as my sign to open my restaurant,” explains Mayette. <br/><br/>From a prophetic dream to endless hours spent honing her craft, Mayette has earned the reputation of one of the best Filipina cooks in Toronto. Her specialty is Filipino food- kaldereta, pancit noodles, chicken or pork adobo- dishes that speak to the country’s East Indian, Asian and Spanish influences. When dignitaries, VIPs, celebrities and singers from the Philippines come to Toronto, they make the requisite stop at Mayette’s. “I sometimes pinch myself and ask, ‘am I really here?’ These people who eat at my restaurant, they were impossible to talk to when I lived in the Philippines and here they are eating my food, talking to me!” beams Mayette. She’s living proof that nothing is impossible and that everything is possible when you believe in your dreams and decide to become “somebody.”
Rated 5 stars by brooks
on February 02, 2011