So true, beautiful country, wonderful people and a lot of influences. Cheers.

You are most welcome. Thanks for stopping by!!

So glad you enjoyed the article, David. Thanks for your feedback. Cheers.

Thank you Edgar for your detailed responses about Filipino cuisine. You’ve added so much depth, especially to the local and everyday favorite foods and drinks. We certainly look forward to going back to the Philippines and exploring many of these other foods you’ve mentioned. Thanks for taking the time to leave your feedback. Cheers.

To be honest I think you barely scratch the surface of Filipino cuisine.
There’s a lot of mentions about our influences from U.S. and China but the mine you missed was Mexico. Dishes like Barbacoa, tamales, binatog, menudo, lengua etc.
You also failed to mention that there’s a counterpart to balut which is called Penoy.
Beautiful dishes like Binakol, kilawin or kinilaw which were foods done by the our natives.
In the southern parts like Mindanao the use of coconut in the most ingenious ways like latik to top off desserts. Lambanog to from the sap, coconut sport, tuba, coconut honey all used to create dishes suitable for crab, shrimp, fish chicken and beef.

Fermentation is a very important part of the cuisine as well, fish sauce, bagoong, puto, buro food that has been masterfully fermented and has been a huge part of the culture pre colonization. Preserving! What about the salty egg and tomato salad? The beautiful lato salad, upo, or the variety of vegetables that was mentioned in the nursery rhyme “Bahay Kubo” mentions the abundance of vegetables leafy greens, beans, squashes, blossoms, leaves used to flavour or wrap other ingredients in to create some of the most complex dishes. The use of offal meats can be scary, dishes like dinuguan, papitan, kilayin, are a bit scary but the masterful use of cane, coconut, palm vinegar not to mention souring fruit agents like Santol, Kamias, green mangoes.
I can go on forever.
And to say Filipinos are not vegetarian friendly? That’s a bit presumptuous. The people that made you your meals were putting their best foot forward as they wanted to impress you by offering their best. That is to serve guests with something that is expensive, meat. I mentioned the nursery rhyme. What about the abundance of fresh fruit juicy succulent mangoes,mangostein , duhat, lanzones, sinkamas, tamarind, guava, passion fruit. I can go on forever and I’m just talking about the varieties that grew in my back yard. Bananas in all it’s glory.
Pulutan, another part of our food culture which boasts the iconic Sisig. One of the best dishes the country has to offer.
Jolibee? What about Burger Machine? Chow king, Shakeys? Goldilocks, Cindy’s, Kanin Club.
Turo turo, kambingan. you can pick up ingredients in the market and there would be an open kitchen where cooks will make you a dish based on what you bought or what was fresh and seasonal in that area.
We don’t eat in courses because Filipinos believe that eating in courses will ruin your appetite. Doesn’t necessarily mean we eat on high speed. The use of spoons is like a shovel for rice but we eat with our hands traditionally because food tastes better this way.
Like tacos, burgers, pizza.
I was looking forward to reading your article, but I feel like you weren’t as prepared as you should’ve been and may have had a bad experience. Most of the country is poor, at least we have the three meriendas we can look forward to;)
Examples of miriendas:
Early morning:
Taho, fresh water buffalo milk, coffee and pan de Sal maybe Buro and champorrado.
Afternoon: banana cue, kamote cue, turon, fishball, halo halo, scramble, qwek qwek, pastillas, bilao, Sapin Sapin, palitaw, bilo Bilo,
Biko, Mercedes de Brazo, ukoy.

Late night merienda:
Fresh fruit, hot milk, milo, balut, penoy, mane, corn snacks, lugaw, arroz caldo, mikki

Vegetarian dishes:
Adobong sitaw, fried peanuts, Ginataang taro leaves, ube, pakbet ilocos, kang Kong adobo and gata, grilled eggplant, puqui puqui, steamed Okra, ginisang upo, kamote puree (baging and kahoy)
Pickled papaya, pickled Indian mangoes, stir fry, pechay, sipo, munggo, seaweed (lato), string beans fermented black beans, banana blossoms in coconut and chiles,
Water spinach sinigang, chayote squash and ginger soup, steamed sweet potato, avocados and calamansi. Squash blossoms and squash stew. These were vegetarian dishes that was eaten everyday by locals and can be easily found in restaurants.
Our food is not as popular because Filipinos crave bitter, sour, fatty, offal, sometimes stinky. Doesn’t mean everyone else needs to try it. We have more than 6000 islands and we all cook differently, eat and view food philosophies differently. As Filipinos we have a view on our food based on our families and what is available around us. People see us eating what we crave because a lot of Filipinos travel to work and is away from the Philippines The most intimate moments with food are the ones we can’t find in other countries so it looks like we like to eat the nasty bits like balut.
When in reality the food is full of veggies because it’s cheaper we use meat to flavour veggies to stretch the expensive meat or flavour the cheap veggies. umami, fresh, rich, salty, bitter, sweet, sour complimenting and contrasting just like any other culture depends on who’s making it or who’s craving it. Or who’s showing you around. The food you tried have a name, restaurant food or handaan. That is not what we eat on a regular. It’s what we eat on special occasion. We’d go broke or get sick of it like you did.

Thank you so much. So glad you enjoyed the article. There is a lot to know and love about Filipino food 🙂 Cheers!!