Living In The Philippines

Lechon Baboy - Roast Pig - Delicious!

Some people can live off fresh air it seems. In the Philippines too many Kanos live off beer and Tanduay rum and eat hardly enough to keep their liver’s functioning. But I like to eat. I enjoy my food and while I don’t eat to excess I confess I do like my steak and potatoes. An often heard complaint when expats get together is that it is difficult to find good food here. Well yes and no.

If you live off the local cuisine then you like rice and a little meat and very few vegetables. Most Filipino dishes I find pretty bland and nothing like the plethora of spicy, tasty Thai dishes or Malaysian cuisine. Even food in Indonesia or Vietnam beats Filipino cooking… for my tastes.  So I buy food I can cook and cook my own western style meals for the most part.

Hardest thing is finding a good quality steak at a realistic price. You can go to a major supermarket or delicatessen of imported goods (such as The Tinderbox in Cebu and elsewhere) and get whatever your heart desires. In places like “Market! Market!” at The Fort in Taguig, Manila you can easily find everything you want. But in the provinces it is more of a challenge. My best advice is to stock up when you go to the city. Take an ice box with you so the meat stays fresh all the way home.

The local butcher at the market will do you a nice beef tenderloin if you get there on the days when ‘baka’ or cows are slaughtered. Be firm or else he will ‘chop chop’ the tenderloin instead of filleting it into steaks for you. I used to cut my own steaks at my Suki’s (regular supplier). Make sure you cook it yourself if you like it anyway other than over done. Filipinos are not steak eaters and don’t really know how to cook them properly, not to mention the cost is prohibitive for most of them.

Your local market will sell you pork and chicken. Goat is also available but too often the meat smells very strongly and it takes a lot of slow cooking to get it tender. I used to buy lamb once a month from The Tinderbox but finding the mint jelly to accompany it was a little harder to arrange sometimes.

Condiments can be a problem. Just getting a quality meat tenderizer might require you asking a friend coming in from overseas as the local stuff is little more than sugar and salt. Many of our favourite sauces, ketchups and such are available but it does pay to stock up on anything when you see it. It might not be there next week and it could be a long time between orders for some lines.

The locals do a great roast pig, they call it Lechon Baboy. Lechon means roasted and baboy means pig. You can also get very tasty lechon manok, or BBQ spit roasted chicken. Both are excellent. Do be aware some feasts will ahve you waiting for blessings and special guests so the lechon baboy will be cold, greasy pork by the time you get to it. Also not everyone cooks the crackling properly and even the good ones usually have it thinner than we are used to. Forget apple sauce unless you bring your own.

Basically you won’t starve here but ovens are rare and so you will have a lot of fried, boiled or casseroled dishes and not too many baked or roasted ones. You can find pretty much everything you want and looking for it is half the fun. The other half is the joy you experience when you find it and then get to go online and tell everyone where it is to be had.

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