Valerie Forrester first tried food from the Namit Filipino Barbecue food truck about a month into her stay at nearby Johns Hopkins Howard County Medical Center, where she birthed her now 2-year-old Hudson.

Her husband ran out to the truck looking for something other than hospital food and brought back what quickly became one of Forrester’s favorite meals: Grilled chicken skewers in a sweet soy barbecue glaze, alongside an atchara, a green papaya relish, and garlic rice. She even ordered catering from the truck to feed the hospital staff.

“It reminds me of a time when things were stressful, scary and its a consistent good meal. I’ve never had a bad meal [here],” she said while at the food truck on Saturday. “I’m embarrassed to tell you I’ve eaten it cold.”

Forrester joined a long line of the food truck’s admirers picking up large orders of lumpia, a Filipino and Indonesian spring roll, meat skewers and more. It will be their last chance before Feb. 1, when the truck will shut down to focus on the opening of a brick-and-mortar restaurant at 9200 Old Annapolis Road.

“They’re really the only Filipino place that I eat because its good, its healthy, its great portions,” said Jordan Foyles, who, while waiting to stock up on grilled chicken skewers, conceded that its also the only Filipino place he knew of in the area.

“It’s really a shame,” he added, “because their [Filipino] cuisine is phenomenal.”

Owners Maria Tabligan and Paolo Peñalosa say they’re introducing many in the county to Filipino food. They are largely considered the only local spot to find Filipino favorites, from lechon chicharron, a deep-fried pork belly, to ube, a purple yam, and guava-flavored cheesecake. Once they open their new location, it will be the only Filipino dine-in restaurant operating within county lines.

Their passionate following, which has continued to grow since the Namit truck opened in 2022, is a stark departure from the type of reception Tabligan and Peñasola expected to get from customers in Howard County.

“Filipino cuisine was not known to be popular,” Tabligan said.

She first moved from the Philippines to Maryland in 1998, at the age of 18. For decades, Tabligan worked in pharmaceutical research, and though she enjoyed cooking, she believed that opening a restaurant would be too risky.

In the Philippines, she grew up on home-cooked meals: “Every siesta you always have to cook.” The family often made empanadas and brothy soups like batchoy, made with ramen-like noodles and guinamos, a pungent shrimp paste, which Tabligan plans to add to the restaurant’s menu.

It wasn’t until she met Peñalosa, her husband’s cousin, that Tabligan started taking cooking seriously. She enrolled in culinary school at Howard Community College with a focus on pastry making. Then she and Peñalosa, whose Rockville taco restaurant had recently closed, came up with a plan to bring their version of Filipino food to the area.

Now chefs, both came from the central Visayas region, which has its own style of food. Chicken inasal, or chicken adobo, is a specialty on their menu, made using savory soy vinegar or lemongrass marinades. The adobo changes based on where you’re from, Tabligan said, explaining that in the north it’s sweeter. Tabligan also seasons many of her dishes with bakwan, a souring agent that tastes like a mix of tamarind and lime.

Luzon, the largest island in the north of the Philippines, is where many of the Filipino foods commonly found in the United States come from, she said, making it more difficult for Tabligan and Peñalosa to find the food they grew up eating in Maryland.

Tabligan started advertising their concept for a Visayan Filipino food truck over social media and then began reaching out to local breweries to see if they’d be open to allowing the truck to serve on their premises. In Visayas, many people chose to eat saucy, charred meat on skewers with beer, she said, and she believed her skewers would similarly appeal to a brewery’s customers.

The idea was a hit.

“The line was around the block. ... We were like, ’Oh my God, where did these people come from?’” Tabligan said. “That’s when we realized there’s a need.”

Over the years, the owners say they’ve watched the Maryland food scene grow more diverse. In Howard County, where there’s long been a large immigrant population, Tabligan said she’s been surprised that both her concept and those of other Asian businesses are finding such large audiences.

She believes new public financing and grants for budding restaurant owners in the county are contributing to the surge. A loan, grant and counseling from the Howard County Economic Development Authority made it possible for Namit Barbecue to pursue their brick-and-mortar space on Old Annapolis Road, Tabligan said.

The new restaurant is a needed upgrade for the Namit team, who say they regularly run out of menu items. As the demand rises, so has the costs of operating the truck. Beef is nearly 20% more expensive than last year, and some tariffs have made buying their imported Filipino soy sauce more difficult.

Still, the truck has always made a profit — a fact Tabligan knows could change with the opening of a restaurant.

“Every day I have that fear,” she said of the business losing money. “But we have people that travel from Virginia just to have our food. We are lucky to be opening where people are excited. The real question is longevity.”

It’s a fear that also haunts Tabligan’s most loyal customers, like Forrester.

Before closing time, Forrester picked up a large catering order of Tabligan and Peñalosa’s food, which she plans to freeze until the spring. In preparation, she’s tried other Filipino eateries in the state, but says its not the same. Even her young son’s a fan.

“I mean people were panic buying at the grocery store before the [snow] storm and I thought: ‘I’m not, I’m just going to Namit’,” she said.