MILWAUKEE— Two restaurant owners united to bring their community together, and put Asian culture at the forefront.

Alexa Alfaro co-owns Meat On the Street. Her family-run Filipino restaurant and food truck embrace her roots. 

Adam Pawlak is the head chef and owner of Egg and Flour, which has expanded to three locations.

Their two backgrounds combined leaves a hungry patron wanting more. Wednesday, Alexa and Adam teamed up to create a signature dish, inspired by Alexa’s Filipino culture. 

She wanted to make sure it coincided with Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

“I wanted Adam’s following to come check out an Asian fusion pasta dish and highlight the month of May,” she said.

After all, nothing is quite as uniting as food.

“It’s just a good way to bring all these different cultures together through food,” Adam said.  “I mean, I don’t think there’s any better way."

The dish consisted of beef shish kabobs, which is a common Filipino street food item. That's mixed with wagon wheel pasta and topped with Adam’s in-house cheese sauce. Then, the whole thing is topped with Pickled onions, crispy garlic and scallions.

Wednesday’s signature dish had people lining up to get a taste. Chefs whipped up the meal until it sold out. All proceeds benefit the Burmese Rohingya Community of Wisconsin. The non-profit supports refugees in Milwaukee, which holds the largest community of Rohingyan and Burmese refugees in the state.

“It’s great for BRCW to have two big networks coming together for something that in many people’s eyes could be small, but in their world, this is a big deal,” Adam said.

BRCW recently purchased a building that will become its first community center for these refugees and a home base for the organization. Proceeds from the signature dish go towards the purchase cost.

This collaboration also comes during Milwaukee’s first Asian Restaurant Week, and at a time when Asian culture has been a target of discrimination. 

Though Alexa said she has not ever been a target for anti-Asian sentiment, she knows plenty of people who have.  

For her, celebrating Asian culture, cuisine, and business owners is critical, especially after a difficult year.

“Putting money directly into these businesses and highlighting on your social media,” she said.  “It means a lot to us and it’s little things like that where we’re like ‘okay, we have to keep going.”