I Would Rather Go Hungry Than Eat Filipino Food Again!

[Monseratto]

This girl will get an social network ass-whooping from onion skinned pinoy community in 3...2...1.

I Would Rather Go Hungry Than Eat Filipino Food Again! - eTramping.com

Many said:

“You will love Filipino food for sure!”, “There is nothing better than seafood in the Philippines”, “Filipinos are proud of their very own local dishes”…

Sorry guys for disappointing you, but it is not true in our opinion.

You all should know by now that we are both food lovers and new flavour hunters. Every single trip, whether we discover new places inside or outside China, is related in some way to food. Before setting off for a new adventure to a new country, we do a proper research into new cuisines trying to find out which dishes we should avoid and which one can’t be missed out. So far, we enjoyed Thai, Indian, Vietnamese, Khmer and Chinese cuisines the most, whereas Sri Lankan dishes (although they were incredibly cheap and accessible) were not our favourite. Unfortunately, with tears in my eyes and broken heart, we must add Filipino cuisine to our “I would rather go hungry than eat this food again” list.

Expectations vs. Reality

What we hoped to experience…

Before coming to the Philippines, we have found CNN Travel’s list of 50 Filipino foods that define the Philippines featuring such dishes as:

Adobo - chicken and pork cooked in vinegar, salt, garlic, pepper, soy sauce and other spices.
Lechon – roasted pig with the crisp, golden-brown skin served with liver sauce.
Kare-kare - stew of oxtail served with delicious sauce made from ground toasted rice and crushed peanuts and presented with some banana blossom, eggplants and string beans.

We also hoped to try some fresh exotic fruits and veggies, grilled seafood, smoked meat and fish, plenty of balut (developing duck embryo that is boiled alive and eaten in the shell), local soups, different kind of rice (red and yellow), kind of dim sum and dumplings, sticky rice and a great composition of herbs and spices.

What we have experienced…

Let me start from telling you that for the first few days we gave the local food a go. We were open to new things, we were willing to eat anything locals gave us and we were so curious about new dishes. That has changed after 4 days of stomachache, dizziness and feeling overtired and bloated.

The fruits we bought at local markets daily looked and tasted old and gross. Bananas (they changed color into black) were the worst (you could see some flies flying around and sitting on the bunch of them). Apples were tiny, oranges and nectarines were extremely sour and pineapples were soaked in some kind of liquid that smelled bad. The only good fruits available there were sour mangoes sold with pepper and sugar as well as watermelons.

What shocked us the most was the poor quality of food. Most of dishes were left on the table without being covered with a lid, or without a fan to get rid of the flies, as it’s a common practice in other Asian countries. Fish and meat were mixed up together in the same bowl, sausages were displayed on a plate surrounded by flies and bugs, everyone was touching food with their fingers to try before buying and what was the worst the food was left on display for all night long and didn’t disappear from there unless someone bought it (we saw the same fish dish on display for two days in a row in one of local restaurants in Manila). It was a big mess, trust me!

The Filipino food is packed with salt, sugar and oil. The meat we were served was soaking in oil, the fish that supposed to be grilled was full of oil and veggies we wanted to try contained more oil than the fattest meat we saw there. As we know, oil makes you feel so tired and slows your metabolism down. After having a few small Filipino lunches, we felt bloated and tired and we could tell it was the food.

We not only started feeling fat (literally), but also suffered from stomachache and diarrhea. I had a massive migraine, mood swings and heartbum caused by spicy and oily pork.

No wonder why, in the north, the vast majority of Filipino kids and young people are overweight. This is something we have noticed straight away. People in young age are huge and it’s due to poor quality of food.

Prices

The Filipino food was extremely cheap though. Coffee was $0.22, bread was for less than $0.5 and meal dishes were never more than $1 (including rice). That was the biggest advantage of dining out in local places. On the other hand, if you wanted to eat something healthy and more Western (brown bread, brown rice, cooked veggies, yogurt, grilled or steamed fish, oatmeal, dried fruits, etc.) you had to pay a lot of money (more than you would pay in your own country).

Conclusion

Based on our experience, Filipino food did not live up to our expectations at all. Let’s hope we can make it there again in the future and find a better luck!

[1D4LV]

maarte lang yan. hehehehehe.
probably she was expecting something na fine dining.

[Pippo21]

Aba e sa tabi tabi kumaen eh. Haha! She should have realized she was buying and eating food from the bottom wrung of the city haha! Mga pinoy lang talaga kayang sumikmura nun haha!

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[Monseratto]

Buti di niya sinubok yung Padpad. Baka akalain niya na exotic food iyan...

[lowslowbenz]

Then go hungry.

Who cares.

[Manilablock]

pag nakatikim ng Pinoy yan magbabago ang kanyang pananaw....

hindi lamang sa tinapay nabubuhay ang tao, meron pang ibang pwedeng kainin na hindi mauubos...

[jhnkvn]

I wonder kung saan siya napadaan. I'll do voice out that not all street food is hygienic... and after venturing into other countries I have even more apprehensions in eating at our friendly Tondo karinderia too.

Then again, worst tummy ache experienced came from my trip to China. Man.. never gonna taste exotic stuff again.

[badkuk]

That's a rather simplistic declaration, don't you think? Pinoy food = bad, American food = good?

Right food, wrong places imho. In any country there's bound to be food that's poorly prepared, and ones that are done superbly. i don't see how she can be a good critic given her poor choice of establishments.

Common sense lang naman: if it doesn't look right, don't eat it...if the place washes your dishes in plastic basins, then it's probably not that clean; if the place has flies, then those flies might have taken a light snack on the food displayed in open air, after it made a pitstop on a pile of sh_t.

i often cringe when i see food show hosts eat at street carinderias -- sorry po kung me ma-offend, but you have to admit it's dicey eating street food here.


Re sugary, oily foods: hello? Krispy Kreme, Coca Cola, Slurpees, Big Mac, Baconator?
About Pinoy kids being obese: right back at you, US of A.

Pot calling the kettle black? If anything, USA is exporting all that unhealthy food to the rest of the world. And we haven't even touched on the chemicals they pump into their food...

Sorry to say this, but little Ms. "travel freak" is sounding like a very naive know-it-all.

[CLAVEL3699]

sa quiapo or sa recto ata kumanin eto eh.

Or sa loob nang palengke.

what do you expect.

[chua_riwap]

yung mga officemates ko na expats (yung mga cowboy) kumakain din ng streetdfoods ang mga yan like banana q, fishball & squidballs & walastik.

pero syamepre dinadala namin sila dun sa lugar na malinis at hindi kung saang tabi-tabi lang. kung sa maruming lugar syempre negative ang comments nyan.

sabi nga nung officemate kong expat noon, sarap daw ng quake-quake.





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