I hate to say it but most of the food that we had in the Philippines wasn’t all that exciting, especially compared to the cuisines of other southeast Asian countries. It’s almost frustrating because they could have amazing food, what with the abundant inexpensive seafood, meats that are raised in a manner that seems far more natural than the meats in the US, and tropical growing conditions. Of course what I consider great food is probably different from what a Filipino considers great food. Indeed, it seemed easier to find western style fast food – pizza, fried chicken, hamburgers, fish and chips, schnitzel, and cordon bleu, than traditional Filipino food. I have some theories about why this situation exists but that’s not really the point. There is one thing that they definitely have a flair for though – Barbecue!
The barbecue stands along the streets in the evenings offer delicious inexpensive treats. The skewers of meat are adorably small but they’re also only about 8-10 pesos (20 cents US). That just means you have more surface area for the nice char they get on the meat, and you get a bunch of them. They use wide shallow grills which they must add charcoal to periodically. Some of them are very small and it seems as though the coals are about to go out until it comes time to cook something and then they continuously fan the coals in a strategic manner which simultaneously causes flames to flare up and puts the flames out.
This technique, and a simple but delicious marinade, result in a nice crispy char on the meat. It’s an interesting process. Other streetside stalls do a rotisserie style of grilling generally with whole chickens, big slabs pork belly, whole pigs, chunks of rib meat with fat and skin, or whole pig head. The result is some very tender juicy meat. Some of the best chicken I’ve had in long time.
The thing that really makes this stuff special is the selection of meats that they use. Pork, chicken, pig and chicken intestines, pig ears, pig skin, chunks of coagulated pig blood, whole chicken heads, pig and chicken liver, pig skin, chicken feet, and chicken tongues (at least I think that’s what they were). My personal favorites were the pig skin and chicken intestines. Sound strange? Those intestines are seriously good (Fern really liked them too, and she was fond of the liver). The pig ears were pretty good too, although some pieces were succulent and tender while other pieces had a lot of hard chunks. The chicken heads required a lot of mouth work to separate the bone pieces from the good parts – brain, eyeballs, tongue, etc.
Our bodies eventually started to crave fresh vegetables, which were oddly difficult to find, but I could go back to those barbecue stands every day or even multiple times a day and I always looked forward to it.
jim@snorkelbandits.com