Filipino Food Adventures

I must admit, I had a challenging time finding food that I was willing to eat for lunch and dinner in Manila. I suppose I could have just made life easier and settled for fast food, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Thankfully, from 15 July we will be staying with some Filipino friends so will have the advantage of insiders' advice on food, but in the meantime I am left subject to the food on offer at the malls.

My first dinner experience was at Megamall food court: I ordered a pork steak grilled on a hot plate and an additional plate of vegetables. They were my favourite veggies - “tung choi”, also known as “morning glory”. However, they arrived swimming - no, drowning - in oyster sauce. The pork steak was also drenched, covered by some sort of gravy thickened up with a mound of corn flour. Nothing like what the picture displayed - a nice, clean pork steak - no sauce - sitting next to very neat pile of rice. I did manage to rescue my dinner out of their sauces as much as possible… the sauce on the pork was so thick that I could just scrape it off with a fork.

For lunch the next day, we found a lovely Asian store where I ordered a delicious piece of steamed fish fillet, complete with an Asian-style dressing of coriander, soy sauce, ginger and probably fish sauce. Ordered my favourite tung choi again. This time it had soy sauce instead of oyster, a much preferred option to the previous evening.

For dinner that evening, I discovered a Mongolian store in my search for fabulous food. I purchased a bowl which I then filled with whatever I wanted. This gave me complete control over exactly what and how much veggies, meat and sauce went into my meal. A fabulous feed for a fabulous fee.

So concludes part 1 of my Filipino Food adventures. Now it's on to Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia - home of my parents, sister, grandma and other extended family. I'm looking forward to some good, familir home-cooked food after 3 days of eating out.