When all four tiny tables at Cafe D' Amor are in use, customers spill over into a snug addition, completed in 1998 to handle over-flow. When those tables fill up, folks balance paper plates on their laps and perch on the twisting stairs of this renovated duplex that overlooks Sixth Avenue.

In the summer, diners plunk down beneath bright yellow umbrella tables in the parking lot. Or idle in vehicles at the cafe's drive-through window. If it's this crowded at Cafe D' Amor, it must be Wednesday, and if it's Wednesday, that must be chicken adobo in the pot.

The spicy Filipino dish has a growing reputation with hungry office workers from the surrounding downtown neighborhood. Some come for the spice, some come for the price -- $6.95 a plate, including rice and vegetables. It's a bet, too, that some come for Juliette Danguilan's high-watt smile and warm, brown eyes.

While customers gladly line up for her adobo and exotic soups, Juliette is nothing like the irritable "soup Nazi" on television's "Seinfeld." Her voice is kind, her talk charitable and brimming with ideas about people and projects and community spirit.

The Danguilans, Nez and Juliette, came to Anchorage in 1991. Nez, 60, is an engineer by trade and moved here to work for the Army Corps of Engineers. Juliette, 55, is a former psychologist. Together, the couple immersed themselves in civic activity from the beginning.

oth grew up in the Philippines, so they focused on the Filipino community as well as the city at large. When Nez was president of the Filipino Community of Anchorage, Alaska Inc., Juliette served as his community liaison. She used her skills as a psychologist to advise and counsel young people, the elderly and pretty much anyone who came to her with a problem.

Juliette later volunteered at Victims For Justice, at the United Nations Association and the Susitna Council Girl Scouts. Nez has worked in minority outreach for the city and now serves on the board of Anchorage Downtown Partnership.

The couple is best-known for their television show, "Fil-Am Showtime," a weekly news program about the Filipino community that airs Wednesdays and repeats Sundays on Channel 9, the public-access cable station. They received a Heart of the City Award in 1996 for their efforts to revive the dilapidated property that became Cafe D' Amor. Their neighbors, from office workers to residents of an appartment building, couldn't be more pleased with the change and with the Danguilans.

"You show up with a cup of coffee, and you end up walking away with a side of commentary," said John Woodbury, editor of Alaska Newspapers, whos office is nearby Woodbury, a regular at what he calls the "Happy Lady Cafe," said when it comes to the adobo, he makes sure he beats out the FBI and other downtown government workers. The trick is getting there early, he said.

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