HUMBOLDT — “If someone is eating our food and we’re staring at you, don’t be weirded out,” said Vaneza Galoso about her Filipino heritage. “We’re just trying to see if you like it — it’s all about making people around us happy.”
Galoso’s restaurant — Shooky’s Good Eatz — marries two seemingly different cuisines: Filipino and New York-style pizza. “It’s kind of weird, I know — the pizza and the Filipino thing,” Galoso said. The idea for the restaurant was born out of a desire for Galoso and her husband, Mike Shook, to share their favorite native foods. Shook is from New York.
“Originally, I was going to do a Filipino name for the restaurant. But, I don’t want to focus on just Filipino food because we like everything.”
Galaso was born in the Philippines and moved to the United States when she was 6 years old. “I am definitely Americanized, I guess you could say,” she said.
“My mother is a full-on Filipino who is always cooking.” Her mother not only cooked many of her native country’s dishes as Galoso was growing up, but a variety of other foods.
“Filipinos love to feed people,” Galoso said with a smile. “It’s in our nature.” Her Filipino heritage, coupled with a childhood spent moving across diverse locations due to her father’s Navy service, turned Galoso into a bona fide foodie. This love for culinary exploration is shared by her husband.
After graduating high school in Hawaii, Galoso relocated to New Orleans for a job opportunity. Three years after moving to Louisiana, she met her husband Mike at a gym.
“He was always trying to talk to me,” she said. “I told my friend, ‘There’s this pretty cute guy, but I think he’s just trying to get me to train with him. I don’t want to pay for a trainer.’” She laughs now at her misinterpretation of his interest in her.
The two hit it off and eventually moved to Mississippi before moving to Chanute six months ago.
Galoso said she has been pleasantly surprised by the sizable Filipino community in Kansas, noting “there weren’t a lot of Filipinos in Mississippi.” 
Before opening Shooky’s Good Eatz, Vaneza visited her parents in Arizona to perfect some of her mother’s recipes. “I try to stay with the more popular dishes. I don’t want to shock Kansas right away,” she said with a laugh. To this end, she explained that she likes to alter and make personalized recipes. For example, she adds peas and carrots to her curry — an uncommon practice in Filipino culture — to give it a balance to the heat of the spiciness. The Filipino side of the menu offers classics like lumpia, marinated pork, and adobo.
Galoso hopes to someday incorporate Vietnamese or Thai dishes.
“The community has already expressed its gratitude for providing different options, ranging from a slice of pizza to a full Filipino meal,” she said. “We hope it helps bring more people to Humboldt.”
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article misspelled Galoso’s first and last names. We regret the error.
