July 1, 2026 — One of the longest lines at the Victoria Filipino Canadian Association’s Mabuhay Festival held in Victoria, B.C. on June 13 and 14, 2026, was for the food being served by Benjamin’s, a well-known restaurant in the city.
Behind one of the tables was Ervin Castillo Maliwanag - the man behind Benjamin’s who, apart from being proprietor, also cooks, manages the cash box, and takes the lead in decorating the restaurant or catering venues for special events.
It is no surprise when, in an interview, Maliwanag confesses that the restaurant is his bread and butter, but that his greatest pleasure is in setting up decorations, because his earliest creative endeavors were on stage, not in the kitchen.
“We were not well off, when I was growing up,” he says matter-of-factly. “I was able to go to college because of a scholarship offered to dance troupe members.”
Born in Manghinao, Bauan, Batangas, Maliwanag was one of three children of a construction worker and a housewife. His sister passed away at 27, leaving two very young children, who came to live with Maliwanag’s parents when their mother passed away.
“My nephew and niece taught me to love children, even at a young age.” His restaurant is named Benjamin’s after his son, who is also the namesake of Maliwanag’s father.
Maliwanag finished high school with help from his brother, who went as an overseas foreign worker to Saudi Arabia. He was a good student, but in high school he discovered a love for dancing. The University of Batangas offered college scholarships to dance group members.
Maliwanag danced, did choreography, and stage design. He went on to study hotel and restaurant management at the Batangas State University, a course that enabled him to go for on the job training in Singapore. He completed his training, went back to the Philippines, but the call of work overseas was too strong to resist.
It was therefore back to Singapore, where he lived out the path familiar to Filipino overseas workers of living off of the kindnesses of friends and strangers, couch surfing, and hitting the pavement looking for work. After two months he landed a work permit, and thus began an unexpected career in the food industry.
Benjamin’s buffet introduces diners in Victoria to Filipino food.
“All I really wanted was to dance, but I could not earn a living from dancing,” he recounts. And so he turned his creative energies to food instead. He had an inauspicious start making waffles ice cream for a coffee shop. He progressed to baking, becoming manager of the cafe after only one year, charged with training new staff in the coffee shop’s branches. He later progressed to working for an Italian restaurant where, he said, he made the best carbonara.
Seven years in Singapore were not without many bumps on the road. After his first year there, Maliwanag’s father succumbed to cancer. Then his mother became ill. Both times he took time off and went home. And then in 2017, a former schoolmate who was now in Canada got in touch with him. And the rest, as they say, is history.
He arrived in Canada the way many Filipinos do - via recruiters for entry level jobs. In Maliwanag’s case it was a job working at McDonald’s. He met his wife Lorian through a religious organization. Like Maliwanag, a restaurant manager working as a fast food server, Lorian was also underemployed - working as a caregiver in Canada after years of working as a nurse in Dubai. They married in 2019, and in 2020 they welcomed their first child, Benjamin. (Lorian has since obtained the certifications to work as a nurse in Canada).
It is perhaps fitting that they named their restaurant “Benjamin” because it was at Benjamin’s first birthday celebration that friends first started asking Maliwanag if he could cook for them! And then there were the coworkers who loved his kare kare (a Filipino stew) so much they too asked if he took orders. And thus a small scale food business was born. For the next two years Maliwanag accepted food orders online, while keeping a regular job. Then in 2023, he received a tip off that Guido’s Cafe in Esquimalt was closing its doors permanently, and that the owner, Paul Siletta was selling.
Maliwanag had managed restaurants in Singapore, but owning a restaurant was a whole new ball game that he says he had no real preparation for. What finally made him take the plunge was when he overheard someone in the community laughing at the idea that Guido’s, an established fixture in Esquimalt selling mainly Italian food, would be serving “shitty Filipino food”.
That did it for Maliwanag. A voice in him urged him to “Just do it.” Besides, his guiding philosophy is “I will try anything and everything.” He was able to raise the funds with the help of business partners. There was no need to buy new equipment; Guido’s had a shared commercial kitchen. Friends with businesses became suppliers. He invited a long-time friend and coworker from Singapore, Che Anne de Leon, to help out. And the community came through, and helped launch Benjamin’s easily past the starting line.
Benjamin’s will have its third anniversary in August 2026. It is the largest Filipino restaurant in Vancouver Island. “It used to be that for Filipino food people in Victoria and Vancouver Island had to make a special trip to Vancouver. Now they can have Filipino food right here anytime they want!”
In its three years Benjamin’s has served Filipino food at countless weddings, birthdays, baptisms, anniversaries, school graduations, and even funeral receptions. It is a regular fixture at events sponsored by Victoria’s Filipino organizations: the Victoria Filipino Canadian Association, the Victoria Filipino Seniors’ Association and the Victoria Filipino Canadian Caregivers’ Association. Other religious and civic organizations have welcomed the ability to outsource food preparation for members who hardly have time off work.
“We cater for about 60 events in a year. The busiest times are June and July for weddings and of course. Christmas.” The restaurant on 614 Avenue in Esquimalt serves drop-ins and has regular buffet lunches, but is also easily converted to a special party venue. The demand for special occasions is such that Maliwanag has launched Atasha’s Balloons - in honour of his daughter Atasha - to do party decorations. Benjamin’s has expanded in other ways. For over a year now, packaged food prepared by Benjamin’s has been available at Fairway branches around Victoria. Benjamin’s is a regular fixture at the Thursday night market in Sidney, and has done events as far away as Nanaimo.
Benjamin’s has a menu that covers Filipino basics like kare kare, lechon kawali, kaldereta, adobo, sisig, lumpiang Shanghai, pancit and dinuguan. A meal is always preceded by a complimentary bowl of bulalo soup. As a salute to his Singapore days, Maliwanag always includes pasta carbonara in his buffets. Sweet cravings are satisfied with brazos de Mercedes, buko pandan, leche flan, and the unbeatable halo halo. Breakfast features all the silogs - tapa, corned beef, longganisa with egg and rice, but also invites the community to savor Eggs Benedicts and waffles, and pancakes and French toast with a twist: served with ube jam.
And that, indeed, is Maliwanag’s goal: for the larger community to discover the many and exciting flavors of Filipino food! “We are here not just for Filipinos, but for all people in Victoria and other places, so they will come to know Filipino food and like it!”
For Filipinos, Benjamin’s fills a deep need. It is a go to for Filipinos working two or three jobs with no time to prepare for their families. It is there to fill sudden cravings for dinuguan, sisig and bulalo. And it is there for the myriad celebrations that Filipino immigrants turn to for life and color in what could be very hard and lonely immigrant lives.
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