Melvin Trinidad knows when it’s time to shoot his shot.
Trinidad, the Filipino pop-up chef known for his kamayan dinners, was getting to know his best friend Bartek’s new girlfriend, Kiaha, and knew that she had a successful Hawiian food cart business, Hapa Howie’s. He was looking for a collaborator and a place to host his pop-ups, and she and her cart seemed like a good fit. “She was in the honeymoon phase, not just with him, but with his friends, so I thought, ‘She’ll say yes to anything I say,” Trinidad says. So he started calling her Kiki — a nickname she has historically hated, and has
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