I want to start this post with a few words about Filipino food in general. It's naff. Definitely a huge disappointment compared to all other Asian food we have had thus far (and will have in the future). As a result my descriptions of the following things may seem uncharacteristically brief, but I assure you this is because there really is little to say. A typical main dish will be some kind of low quality meat cooked in a nondescript soy-vinegar sauce, served with rice.
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| Breakfast 1: Rice, egg, meat. |
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| Breakfast 2: Rice, egg, meat, tomato, banana. |
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| Breakfast 3: Toast, egg, meat. You get the idea. |
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| Caramelised sweet potato chips - disappointing. |
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| Deep fried eggs in weird batter - a popular snack, but nothing spectacular. |
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| Take-away food is often served in plastic bags. Not a bad idea, until one gets a puncture! |
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| Crispy chicken in soy sauce, with rice. |
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| Non-crispy chicken in soy sauce, with rice. |
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| A chicken dish that left no impression on me, so I don't really remember it. |
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| Slightly different chicken. I know it all looks quite tasty but trust me, there was nothing special going on anywhere near these plates. |
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| Chicken Adobo. The signature dish of the Philippines... it was always a safe choice but never that great. |
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| Squid adobo... "It was alright, but nothing to blog home about" |
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| Squid curry... "That was pretty good actually" |
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| These two were quite nice. On the left is veggie curry, and on the right is some kind of huge fish steak. |
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| Pancit Canton - basically just noodles and veg. |
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| Fish and chips...Dave wanted a taste of home |
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| Disgusting pork in vinegar with some weird pork scratchings...beware of Filipino chain restaurants. |
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| That said, Chow King does pretty decent Chinese food - this was a side of dumplings we got. Nothing special, but overall the food was good. |
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| The KFC Double Down Burger: No bun, just bacon, cheese, tomato and mayo, sandwiched between two pieces of fried chicken. "It was incredible and well worth the days it has probably shaved off my life span" |
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| MANGOES! The Philippines prides itself on having some of the best mangoes in the world and you know what? I think they might be right! |
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| Mango Graham cake. An apparently typical Filipino dessert made from layers of crumbled Graham biscuits (whatever they are), mango and cream, which is frozen and served semi-defrosted. Really quite delicious. I might try it at home. |
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| The ice cream man! |
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| Yup - that's mango and purple yam ice cream in a burger bun...weird but not half bad. |
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| This time we decided to get our CHEESE ice cream in a cone. The ice cream itself was pretty tasteless and it just had a few little bits of processed cheese in it. Weird. |
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| Juice made from tiny calamansi limes. |
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| Green mango shake. These deliciously tangy smoothies became our go-to fruit drink. Oh and there is a calamansi on the rim, in case you were wondering what they looked like. |
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| All I need are two zig-zags and I'd be Afro-Man! |
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| I asked the super cute 10-year-old girl behind the sweetshop counter what her fave sweets were. After discussing it with her little sister, she recommended these tiny biscuit balls in chocolate sauce. They even came with a tiny spoon! |
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| These were really tasty. |
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| Tropical Skittles - not bad. |
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| Mango flavoured popcorn! YUM! We actually bought this in Taiwan but didn't eat it until the 'Ppines. |