This new spot tucked inside an Asian market in Warner Robins offers Filipino cuisine
A new takeout spot serving traditional Filipino cuisine is nestled within an Asian market in a small shopping center in Warner Robins.
Lorena Ferguson, a native of the Philippines, opened Lor’s Philippine Cuisine to help put her daughter through college. Her daughter, Makylee, who’s enrolled at Georgia Military College, assists her.
The eatery at 1806 Russell Parkway, Suite 900, is inside the Asian Bliss Market in the Parkway Village shopping center on the corner of Carl Vinson and Russell parkways.
“I just love to cook,” Ferguson said as she was stirring a dish in preparation of opening for the day. “My family loves to cook.”
A single mom of five, Ferguson offers the same dishes that she cooks at home for her family.
At her takeout spot, she cooks everything fresh in the morning before she opens. The eatery is open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, unless she runs out of food and closes early. She also has two employees who also help her. The number is 478-302-9168.
The food
On a recent visit, the dishes included stir-fried cabbage, chicken teriyaki, chicken pancit, pork adobo and lumpia. The dishes rotate, and on Saturdays, she also offers grilled kebabs.
Ferguson writes the daily offerings on a dry erase board after she’s finished cooking.
On a second visit, she was offering pancit with chicken, afritada, chicken adobo, beef torta, bistek, stir-fried cabbage with other veggies, and pork lumpia.
She also offers freshly made Halo-Halo dessert and Boba smoothies.
Laura George stopped in to get some food for her husband, Tommy. She left with a few hot dishes, a package of frozen lumpia to fix at home and a large jar of the dipping sauce for the lumpia.
A school teacher for Houston County schools, George said she heard about Lor’s Philippine Cuisine from a co-worker and tried it the very next day.
Another customer, Toni Reace of Kathleen, was also asked what she thought about the food.
“I love it,” Reace said as she waited for her order. “I’m back again.”
Ferguson arrives early to cook the food, with most of the prep work done the afternoon before by her employees who also cook alongside her. Her ex-husband also helps out in the afternoon.
Once the food is prepared in the kitchen of the Asian market, it’s moved to a warm holding area in the small space within the market that’s Lor’s Philippine Cuisine. The owners of the market previously had a deli in that space.
After opening the eatery, Ferguson next heads to the Child Development Center at Robins Air Force Base where she’s a pre-kindergarten teacher.
Ferguson said she doesn’t mind holding down two jobs to help her daughter and hopes that all of her children will want to go college. Besides, she’s doing what she loves.
“If they want a good life, they’ve got to go to school,” she said.
The Asian Bliss Market
The Asian Bliss Market, which houses Lor’s Philippine Cuisine, also is expanding, taking over an additional space within the shopping center.
Owned by Gladys and Jim Propes, the Asian Bliss Market offers a wide selection of Filipino foods and products as well as items from other Asian countries, according to their website. The couple previously operated the former Asian Marketplace in the Houston Lake shopping center years ago.
This story was originally published February 13, 2023 at 5:00 AM.