Somewhere East: Monday Supper Club brings a bigger table to SOS Poblacion

At Somewhere East, Justine Chua and Jan Maceda brought their home-dinner beginnings to SOS Poblacion, with Asian-inspired plates, playful design, and room for new friendships.

Before Monday Supper Club took over a restaurant kitchen, there was Justine Chua’s living room. Depending on the dinner’s theme, co-founder Jan Maceda might turn it into a little diner or a taco shop, while the team worked around limited equipment, sourced ingredients, and found dinnerware.

The dinners began with friends and grew into themed gatherings, each with its own menu and creative direction. Food brought people to the table; meeting one another was part of the evening, too.

“We love seeing people come in as strangers and leave as friends,” says Jan.

That approach found a bigger home at SOS Poblacion. Somewhere East, Monday Supper Club’s first restaurant kitchen takeover, brought together Asian-inspired small plates, two exclusive cocktails, and a DJ set for one night.

For co-founders Justine, executive chef, and Jan, creative director, the move meant more space to experiment—and more people to welcome.

“We want people to come in, meet new people, make friends, and feel like they’re part of something rather than just dining at another restaurant,” says Justine.

She wanted to preserve the sense of community and the care given to each guest’s experience. A larger dining room and a more spacious kitchen also offered possibilities that home dinners could not always accommodate, from the setup to the overall experience.

Jan carried that thinking into the seating plan, including communal tables where couples and smaller groups could sit together and meet.

Somewhere East became their biggest supper club yet, with around 80 guests in one night, according to Jan. Their usual home set-up hosted about 40.

For a four-person team, the change required mental preparation. Jan describes it as both exciting and nerve-wracking: a chance to welcome more people and challenge themselves while keeping the intimacy they valued.

The team comprises Co-Founder and Executive Chef Justine Chua; Co-Founder and Creative Director Jan Maceda; Chef Chien Alferez; and Pastry Chef Sarina de Ocampo. Justine, a former Chef de Partie at Metiz, oversees menu development, recipe testing, and execution, with Chien and Sarina supporting the kitchen. Jan brings her background in marketing, media, and creative design to the branding and visual direction.

For Justine, one of the clearest differences was how much infrastructure a restaurant already provides: equipment, established systems, and ingredients that are generally more accessible.

At home, the work starts much earlier. Concept development, menu planning, sourcing, limited equipment, and even dinnerware all fall to the team. That process has taught them to be resourceful and work with what they have.

It also gives Justine something to look forward to: watching Jan transform her living room for each theme.

Jan’s learning has been on the other side of the kitchen. She has always enjoyed hosting, but has no formal hospitality training. Welcoming guests, arranging seats, taking orders, serving food, and making conversation are skills she has developed through the supper clubs themselves.

At SOS, two members of the venue’s team helped with service. Alongside the support of Justine, Sarina, and Chien, that assistance made a difference in managing the flow of guests.

“I think my biggest takeaway was learning how to adapt to a much larger scale while still maintaining that personal touch,” Jan says.

Whether the gathering is for 20 or 80, she wants guests to feel as welcomed and looked after as they would at a dinner in the team’s home.

Justine often starts with a meal she remembers from travelling or dining abroad. She recreates or translates those flavors with more local, accessible ingredients, adding her own Asian twist.

Garlic longganisa is a particular favorite. She has served it on a tostada and incorporated it into a bread course. Somewhere East gave her another way to use it: Shanghainisa, a combination of lumpia and longganisa.

The Krapow Chicken Chop came together much later.

“I was torn between doing Taiwanese chicken chop or Pad Krapow, but both felt a little too straightforward on their own. Then I thought, why not just combine the two? Haha.”

The resulting dish brought Taiwanese-style fried chicken together with Thai-inspired flavors.

The à la carte menu also included Sichuan Style Dumplings, filled with pork and kuchay and served with homemade garlic chili crisp; Tanigue Ceviche with mandarin, red radish, and herb oil; and Pork, Please, crispy pork belly with patis, key lime, and herbs. SOS Pancit was the team’s take on pancit canton.

Two cocktails created with SOS accompanied the food. Monday Sour Club combined Bushmills, Disaronno, Campari, lemon, and milk. Wild Sunday brought together gin, Cointreau, wildberry, honey, and lime.

An Asian-inspired gathering had been on Justine and Jan’s minds since they started Monday Supper Club. They shared a love of Asian food and nightlife: neon lights, bright colors, and an atmosphere that felt casual yet elevated.

The food, space, and creative direction took shape before they had a name, venue, or date. Somewhere East emerged during a late-night brainstorming session, reflecting their wish to draw from different cuisines rather than focus on one.

Jan developed a palette of bright reds, pinks, highlighter yellows, and greens, with hand-drawn graphics and Asian-inspired illustrations. Familiar imagery, including the lucky cat, received a playful, contemporary treatment.

Artwork from social posts and posters became stickers, placemats, and menus. Sake bottles and chopsticks appeared in the tablescapes, drawing on the feeling of a late-night Asian speakeasy in Hong Kong.

SOS had already caught Jan’s attention when the venue approached them. Its Poblacion location, lighting, and indoor-outdoor setup suited the concept. Visiting confirmed that the size, atmosphere, and versatility would allow the team to make it their own.

The venue gave them freedom to experiment with decorations and the setup. One of Jan’s favorite features was the LED display across the ceiling, which SOS allowed her to customize with Monday Supper Club, Somewhere East, and SOS graphics. Scrolling text appeared alongside her hand-drawn illustrations.

They adjusted the lighting, too, moving from SOS’s usual green tones toward warmer reds, pinks, and yellows. Existing stainless steel furniture and metallic details provided a contrast to the colors.

For Jan, the collaboration worked because they could build on the atmosphere already there while bringing their own personality to it.

Music was part of that plan. Their friend Joachim de Jesus played a DJ set, with a curated playlist between sets to keep the evening’s energy going.

Among the changing menus, one dessert keeps returning: Justine’s Cheetos Tres Leches.

Its beginnings were straightforward, if unusual. Justine was eating Cheetos like cereal and noticed the cheesy, salty, orange milk left in the bowl. She began thinking about how to turn it into a dessert people would want to try.

She has always enjoyed sweet-and-savory combinations, pointing to salted caramel and champorado with tuyo as familiar examples of that contrast.

The team was initially nervous about the reception. The dessert—a soft sponge cake soaked in a cheesy milk mixture and topped with Cheetos crumbs—eventually became a crowd favorite and has appeared at almost every supper club.

Rather than give it a similar dessert to share the menu with, Justine looks for contrasting flavors: something tart, chocolatey, or fruit-forward.

“We usually lean towards something more tart, chocolatey, or fruit-forward, so the Cheetos Tres Leches can have its own space to shine without competing with another milky or savory dessert.”

For Somewhere East, there was also Toasty Things: black sesame ice cream, honeycomb, and toasted rice.

Justine had wanted to explore black sesame in a dessert for a long time. Jan also credits Sarina’s homemade honeycomb, which she had been looking for ways to include in their menus. Toasty Things brought those ideas together.

The takeover gave the team room to try a different format, collaborate with a new space, and bring their food and design to a larger gathering. For Jan, the measure of that growth still comes back to the people at the table.

“At the end of the day, beyond the food and the aesthetics, it’s really about the community we’re trying to build.”

Food: Justine Chua

Venue: SOS Poblacion

Main Art & Tablescape: Jan Maceda (Highly Plated)

Live DJ: Joachim de Jesus

Poster Art: Cynthia Tan