- Okay.

Can you tell me what we're looking at?

- [Chera] The ube cookie, pan de ube, ube cheesecake, with an ube latte.

- I really love that.

It's so good.

It's so fudgy.

There's something very vanilla about it.

Like, kind of a familiar flavor with an unfamiliar color.

- [VO] This is a love letter to ube, the purple yam that's been a part of the Filipino diet and culture for more than 400 years.

And thanks to its Instagrammable beauty, ube has gone mainstream in the States over the past few years.

But a couple Seattle spots were way ahead of the trend.

There's my favorite cheesecake at Hood Famous, and the photogenic, violet-hued pancakes at Ludi's that have hungry folks lining up around the block every weekend.

I'm Rachel Belle, host of Your Last Meal podcast, cookbook author and long time journalist.

Today on The Nosh, the Sweet Purple World of Ube.

- [VO] Ludi's is a downtown Filipino diner famous for its stack of ube-infused rice flour pancakes topped with a shiny coconut ube glaze.

Ludi's is also known for its smiley, gregarious owner, Greg.

- How's everything here?

- Very good.

- First time?

- Yeah.

- What did you order?

- I got the... your special, the crab omelette.

- [Greg] Oh, crab omelette!

How about ube?

- Ube pancakes too.

- Too, okay.

- Hi!

- Hi, welcome to Ludi's!

- Thank you.

I'm Rachel.

Nice to meet you.

- Hi, I'm Rita.

- I need ube pancakes.

(laughs) - We have those... - Let's just get right to the point.

- Yeah, okay.

- And then I saw on the menu that you have a free knuckle sandwich, so I'll have that too.

These are amazing.

Wow.

I am so excited about this.

Ooh, that looks really good too.

Mmm.

The pancakes are so springy.

It looks like it's going to be very sweet, but it's not.

It's very coconutty.

So Greg, tell me the history of the restaurant.

- [Greg] I, came in, this country in 1978, all the way from the Philippines.

I look for a job at The Turf and they hired me as a dishwasher.

- [VO] The Turf was an infamous rough and tumble dive bar and diner that opened in 1927.

When its owner passed away in 2002, they left the diner to Greg.

He changed the name to Ludi's in 2012, but continued to serve classic American diner food until his daughter Rita got involved.

She added some Filipino staples and in 2017, her ube pancakes.

- We started with combo silogs.

Silog means garlic rice with egg.

It has pork chop, longanisa sausage, and lumpia.

The ube just followed right after 'cause it was just like, well, we gotta have something sweet.

Filipinos love sugar.

- Tell me where the name Ludi's comes from.

It's my mother's friend.

She took care of me.

I didn't know my mom was dying of cancer.

- How old were you?

- I was seven when she gave me up.

- [Rachel] Mmm.

- Yeah.

It was a really dim dark life that I had to start.

And now I can share a lot of shininess and brightness to other people.

- And you get to work with your daughter every day.

- Yeah, I have seven daughters.

- Seven daughters!

Wow.

You share him with so many people.

- Yeah.

It's very sweet to see, you know, people come in and they might not have family, and then they start just hanging out with my dad, and I'm like, yeah.

He can be your dad, too, you know, so... - Your dad, your uncle, your grandpa.

- Yes, yeah.

- Whatever you need him to be.

- Yeah.

I'm like, no problem.

- I belong here and I look forward to being here all the time.

- [VO] Hood Famous owners, and husband and wife, Chera Amlag and Geo Quibuyen, are unlikely cafe owners.

She worked in the nonprofit world, and he rapped in the popular Seattle hip hop duo, Blue Scholars.

But when they started a Filipino pop up dinner series in 2014, it was Chera's ube cheesecake that stole the show and launched Hood Famous.

The bakery is known for infusing Filipino flavors like ube into their lattes and desserts.

But it's rare to see the root vegetable itself.

So I have had ube in desserts, but I've never actually seen the ube.

What is it?

Who is she?

- She is a beautiful tuber.

Its closest cousins would be the Okinawan sweet potato and taro, which if you scratch this here you can actually see the... Purple.

- [Rachel] Yeah!

you can see the purple.

Of which I had coordinated my entire outfit.

(laughs) - Lovely.

- [Rachel] The big reveal.

It's kind of like a lighter lavender.

- Yeah.

- [Rachel] Let's taste a little bit.

- Hmm.

That is not what I was expecting at all.

It's very starchy.

- [Geo] It's from the ground.

- [Geo] Yep.

Mhm.

- And it's not sweet like a sweet potato would be at all, it's very savory.

- Yes.

- [VO] Ube desserts usually get their electric purple hue from ube jelly and extract.

At Hood Famous, the sweets are made with ube halaya, a jam that Chera has been making since childhood.

- I liken it to like a soft caramel.

- Oh, okay.

- Yeah Growing up in the Philippines, I would do the stirring.

So I have this video of me just like walking around the house with my ube... - Your little purple spoon.

- Yeah.

(laughs) - Well, let's make it now, I'm so curious.

- Ube is already often packaged in frozen grated form like this.

We're going to put all the milks, the evap, the coconut, and then the condensed milk.

Add a little bit more sugar.

That's how ube gets sweet.

- Yeah.

- Then we add some melted butter This is the caramel, stirring part, right?

- Yeah.

- Then I'm going to put a little bit of ube extract.

That actually is what will make this, that deeper purple that ube is known for.

- Oh yeah.

There it is.

- There you go.

So you can see it's not as hard as a caramel at all.

- And it looks creamier than a typical fruit jam.

- Yeah.

- That... - Oh.

Is what I grew up eating.

- That is so good.

You're living in this purple world all the time.

- Yes!

I love that ube is out there.

It's such a reflection of our culture too.

It's like we're very bright and happy and, you know, I love that purple is representing our cuisine.

But I also want to tell folks, like, we have so much more.

When we opened in 2019, we didn't know this, but we were the first Filipino food establishment that was coming back after 35 years.

- In the CID?

- In the... yeah, Chinatown International District.

There was a Filipino town.

Historically, there's such a rich history.

And over the years we've had so many people come in and just tell us how important the space is.

It's been more than just about the ube cheesecake.

I just feel really, honored to be able to serve our community and eat and drink really fun purple things at the same time.

- There's a poetry to it with ube literally being a root.

It's like our roots are literally present.

- So is that like a concentrate of ube with some other sweetener kind of thing?

- [Chera] It's an ube extract.

Yeah.

- Ooh, look how dark it is.

- Yeah, it's... I've definitely gotten away... - Oh, don't eat it like that.

(laughs) - [Rachel] It's not good.

It's not good.

- Oh no!

- I thought it was gonna be, like, super sugary and it was like alcohol.

It's like drinking vanilla extract.

- Your teeth are purple.

- They are?