Stockport
Imelda was born in Camarines Sur, Bicol and has one son currently studying in university in Naga City. In conjunction with her sister she ran a small restaurant in Bicol before going to Taiwan and being trained in electronic assembly.
After several years working as an OCW in Taiwan she returned to the Philippines only to be robbed of her hard-earned savings, rings, jewellery, cell phones etc by an armed gang who raided her home one dark night and held the family at gunpoint.
After losing everything she had worked for she showed true Philippine determination not to be beaten and again returned to Taiwan to start again.
There she met her future husband Antony Coe an Englishman and as her Chinese co-workers couldn’t pronounce ‘Imelda’ she used her cousins name Maritess, which the Chinese pronounced as Maritin and this was then shortened by her husband to be, to ‘Tess’ as his pet name for her to go with his family name of Coe. It was a couple of years before she realised he had named her after a UK supermarket!
During this second stay in Taiwan and by now married to Tony, Tess worked at a Chinese Buddhist restaurant every morning from 5 am to lunchtime to improve her Asian cooking skills and then simultaneously started a small refurbished computer business aimed at supplying her fellow OCW workers with cheap computers to send home to the Philippines, with husband Tony supplying technical support and converting the computers to operate with English language. The residents of Taichung soon got used to seeing Tess or Tony (or sometimes both together), on a small scooter fully loaded with up to 3 full sized desktop computers being delivered to the Philippine girls dormitory.
It wasn’t long before Tess’s love of cooking in general and more specifically the lack of authentic hot Philippine food led to the family home becoming a none-stop kitchen at weekends, supplying a small stall manned by husband Tony and catering to the taste-buds of the hundreds of Filipinos working in the many Taiwanese factories locally with genuine home cooked Filipino recipes.
Tony’s primary job has finally led to the family being relocated in Stockport and Tess (or Imelda if you prefer), has taken over adelessuperstore on Wellington road.
We look forward to supplying your favourite Philippine and Western Pacific Regional foodstuffs and ingredients.
Tess (Imelda) and Tony.
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