Philippines Travel Guide

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Filipino Food

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Filipino Food

When travelling to a foreign country one of the major things at least for me is to sample the local delicacies, you can not say you have had the total Philippines experience until you have sampled the Filipino cuisine. Not all items on this list looks appetizing to foreigners, but use this as a checklist and at least try a few.

Filipinos eat all day, well that might be an overstatement, but it is very close to the truth, there are many meals and submeals during the day. There are many small snackbars everywhere, some stationary, and some on wheels, they sell everything from cobs of corn to fruit salad or Balut, Balut is one of the most dreaded snack by most foreigners, it is basicly a boiled ready to hatch ducks egg, if you take it apart, you can actually see beak and small feathers in there, not exactly my kind of snack. I have so far avoided trying this snack, because I simply do not think that it will do me any good :-)

One way of eating is kamayan, it means using your hands, this is the native way of eating which is still used throughout the provinces.

Another filipino snack that doesnt exactly sound delicious to me is intestine, that can be either pig or chicken intestines on a barbeque spit, and then barbequed with a spicy sauce. I have tried both these, I had to try, but I will probably not eat it again, unless I am in a situation where I have to.

Well, now we got over the, to me, rather unpleasant snacks, but they do of course have many snacks that are equally delicious,that includes the sidewalk barbeques, where you can buy barbeque spits with pork, also cooked with a nice spicy sauce, they have given many a traveler an upset stomach, but they are really tasty. Another great snack is the lumpia, it is a miniature version of a spring roll, it is rice pastry, filled with chinese vegetables and ground beef or pork.
Hot pandesal is also an absolute favorite in the Philippines, pandesal is like small bread rolls, and they are always served hot.

Meals

The filipino meals is always based on rice, thats breakfast, lunch and dinner, I have heard filipinos say over and over again, that they are not full after a meal without rice, and if they only eat bread or potatoes, they are hungry again an hour later(they are too when they eat rice, but dont tell them:-). To me that sounds a bit boring. but the rice can be served in many variations. boiled, fried, baked, as cake and much more. After these more or less bizarre snacks you should read about the filipino dishes to live for, because the filipino kitchen has also got some very delicious treats for its visitors.

Gastronomical & Visual Delights

Ilocos Norte Cuisine 2

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