Manila Day 3

Update: I am told again by LR that there's lots to see and do in Intramuros--art shops, Spanish cafes, little churches, gardens, handicraft shops etc. I believe her. Too bad we got caught in a storm.

Woke up to a dark drizzly morning. A friend had sent me a message: MUST go to Intramuros. Checked guide book which recommended Fort Santiago in Intramuros too. Took a 1/2 hour taxi ride to Intramuros, the old capital of The Philippines. Paid the entrance fee of P200/RM15/US$4, and heavy rain started to pour right after we entered. Sheltered in one of the souvenir shops. Guy lent us umbrellas. Walked into the rain and wind. Wind flipped umbrella upwards, then back, totally drenching me so I ditched the umbrella. La la la ella ella eh eh eh ella.



Wind 'walked' me along. It was funny. We laughed and giggled for no reason, Hub shook head. Unspoken words were: why did we wake up at 7 am, come out here, in the rain and wind, to see a lousy old fort?



A few cannons, small stretches of walls and a nondescript fort. Nothing you can't get in Malacca. That LR, I'm going to get her for this.



I found this on the ground. Flavor was pleasant, like soursop. Saw them in the supermarkets. too. Had fuzzy skin just like peaches.



Checked out the Manila Cathedral. Nice stained glass and sombre atmosphere. Miss that and the Our Fathers and Hail Marys. Too much babababadededebaba in charismatic churches sometimes. Headed back to Manila. This doesn't happen in Makati but anywhere outside of the posh district: people knocking on your taxi window when the lights are red, trying to sell you things.



The poor little girl was standing in the rain, knocking on Yi's window. She indicated P10 but Yi gave her P20/RM1.50/US$0.40 and in return got 5 beautiful strands of jasmine buds, some of which we gave our cabbie to hang.

Fell asleep. Tap on shoulder. Looked out, saw this:



And this:



And some boys playing happily in the flood but camera shutter lagged. Don't know how long we were stuck in the flooded road, but from the time I woke up until we got into Makati (where the road suddenly turned dry) was 15 to 20 minutes. I got anxious. What if we had to wade through the water? I bet Yi'll enjoy it (and me too) but I'd die worrying about the diseases I'd get. But lucky for us, not a single car stalled in the flood. What engines do they use?

Took 1 1/2 hours to get back to Makati because of the flood and traffic. Decided to head for Clark at noon although our flight was at 6 pm. Just in case the flood got worse you see.

Airline counter not opened. No taxis in Clark, only private-owned cars. Guy wanted P315/RM23 /US$7.50 for a 10 minute ride to the nearest mall. Robber. Clark and surrounding very green and beautiful. Wondered why people rush to Manila when they can live in Clark. Saw many old white men with teenage Filipino girls. Cabbie said Clark is a favorite destination for Italians and Australians because there are 100 bars with 4000 bar girls, poor and hungry. "You've got what I want, I've got what you need." Is that exploitation or is that a ticket to a better life?

Mall food again. Picked Gerry's Grill because Hub wanted meat. Ordered enough for 5, lots of pesos left.


Gerry's crispy pata/pork knuckle is what made the chain restaurant famous. I found it disappointing-- sticky and chewy and not at all crispy. We bagged the leftovers and brought it home for Wey who ate all the skin and licked the bones. P415/RM31/US$8.


Inihaw na pusit is grilled cuttlefish P305/RM23/US$6. I had to eat most of this because the others disliked the sugary taste. This is a complaint most non-Filipinos make about Filipino food--the addition of sugar to most savory dishes.


Inahaw na liempo P135/RM13.50/US$3.60 was just grilled pork belly with no special flavor. Again, a bit too sweetish for us. I ate a bowl of rice with the liempo because of the chili lime dip--so like what we get at home.


Bangus ala pobre P220/RM16/US$4 was the dish we most enjoyed. The bangus/milkfish was tender, fresh, flavorful and sweet. How do they remove the millions of bones?


Okay so it's chain restaurant desserts but we loved it. Leche flan P56/RM4/US$1.10 and buko pandan P35/RM2.60/US$0.60

Overall, Gerry's food was not bad when we were eating it but when we were done, we felt a little uncomfortable because it truly was a very greasy meal. Yi said that if we had eaten at Gerry's instead of Mangan on the first day, we would've had a better impression of Filipino food. I agree but then you can't go wrong with grilled food, ya?


Chicharon, crispy pork rinds , is a very popular snack. They eat chicharon with a vinegar and chili dip which was quite okay especially if you like the flavor of pork fat. I didn't find it very tasty and in fact after 3 pieces, my mouth and throat were parched, leaving me gasping for water. The home-made chicharons in clear plastic are way better than the fancy packaged ones because their rinds are fluffy-crisp while those packaged for the supermarkets are hard.

Flight back was terrible because of turbulence. I was strapped to my seat and gripped the armrests for the duration of the 1 1/2 hour flight. Hub slept like a baby all the way home.

Next day, papers said Manila was shut down (public holiday declared) at 8 am the last day we were there (when we were prancing in the fort) because of Typhoon Isang which whipped the northern part of The Philippines. We went through a storm and didn't know it. And that's all folks, on my Manila trip.

Note: We should've got a local guide. I think that makes a lot of difference especially food-wise. Then again a guide wouldn't be able to change the weather. And therein lies the sad fact about the beautiful islands of The Philippines: They are plagued by typhoons, earthquakes, bad management and corrupted politicians. But who am I to say that when we have our share of unnatural disasters too.

Manila Day 2

There are reasons why people don't go to Manila. The food is not great, the traffic is hell, the shopping is mediocre (I could think of worse adjectives but I shouldn't be too harsh; they need the tourists) and there's only the Ayala Museum to dive into if you want something cultural. Then there's the weather. Of the 3 days we were there, two were rainy days due to a typhoon called Isang. I'll tell you about Isang tomorrow.

It's not easy to find a place to eat in Makati in the morning but if you are adventurous, there are lots of mobile stalls like this:



The weather on the first day was fine but we went shopping. All day. The second day, we woke up to rain and huge traffic jams but that was okay because we lived only 5 minutes from the Greenbelts. Since we had done the Greenbelts the first day, we decided to go further, to Rockwell Power Plant Mall. I don't know why it's called power plant because it looked like a regular mall to me. I like Rockwell Mall. It is small, elegant and pleasant. It has top designers shops like Ferragamo and brands like Zara but just as in KL and Singapore, the labels are there but the selection is very limited. I think branded goods are slightly cheaper in Manila than in Hong Kong.

We were lost again when it came to lunch. What can you eat in a mall? It was either Filipino-American fusion or fast food. I was thinking of trying California Pizza but the others wouldn't touch Italian after last night. The only food we all agreed on was Japanese shabu shabu, again something we didn't expect to eat in Manila.

We are true Chinese to the core, because we felt so good eating Japanese shabu shabu, which is like a poor man's version of the Cantonese steam boat. The soup and the lack of oil were refreshing and blandness was welcome when your taste buds are tired.


I liked the wheat noodles the most. Chewy and smooth.


Shabu shabu + halo halo = happy happy.

Rockwell is small and isolated so we took a taxi back to Glorietta and went to the supermarket for fruits. We asked a lady where to get the best lechon, and she asked what lechon we wanted, chicken or pork. I thought lechon was roasted pork. Same thing happened when we asked a taxi driver, who wanted to know if we wanted lechon baboy (pork) or lechon manok (chicken). I've since found out that lechon in Spain is suckling pig but in The Philippines, lechon refers to the roasting method of cooking. So when in Spain, ask for lechon but when in The Philippines, ask for lechon manok or lechon baboy or lechon baka (beef). But to confuse matters, lechon kawali is pork fried in a kuali (wok) so I think the word is pretty much misused.

Anyway, the lady directed us to Lydia's Lechon located in the basement of Landmark. There were lots of other places for lechon but we'd have to go out of Makati. We went to Landmark's food court in the basement but couldn't find Lydia's, which was unfortunate because I've since found out that the lechon in Lydia's Lechon chain of restaurants is the most well-known in Metro Manila. We settled for the Baliwag lechon, but they were out of lechon baboy so we had the lechon kawali, which like I said earlier is not roasted but deep-fried.


Little pockets of well-manicured gardens that connect the shopping and office buildings of the Greenbelts. Metro Manila is very green, with lots of nice medium-sized trees lining their streets.


Baliwag's Lechon kawali was tasty, tender, lean but not dry. The skin though was thin and hard-crispy, probably because it was deep-fried. I doubt it was a suckling pig because there was too much meat. P165/RM12/US$3.15 plus a bowl of rice and a plum sauce dip.

My only regret about the trip now is that we didn't go to La Loma in Quezon City where rows of lechon baboy are displayed outside the restaurants. We thought we could eat lechon baboy anywhere in Makati but everytime we asked, it was sold out or unavailable but lechon kawali was always on the menu. I think that's because lechon kawali is just pork belly which can be fried to order anytime while lechon baboy is cut from a whole roasted pig. We never got to eat lechon baboy.

The next place we went was to satisfy my daughter. We were told that for cheap clothes and shoes, we should try Greenhills. The locals, such as the lady we spoke to and the cab drivers, insisted we shouldn't go there but Yi was curious and she loves cheap bargains so we took a cab out to Greenhills. Taxi rides are very cheap. A half-hour ride costs about P100/RM7/US$1.90 and all taxis are metered. But never sit in front. I did once and couldn't wait to get out. Most of the roads are not marked and a 5 lane road can fit in 8 lanes of cars, each one 1/2 foot apart and racing at 80 kmph in heavy traffic. Coming from small town KK, taxi rides in Manila are terror rides. I wouldn't recommend jeepneys either. Their drivers are either crazy or seeking reincarnation.

What can I say about Greenhill? It was a waste of time for me, but Yi picked up a couple of P130/RM10 T-shirts.

Dinner was in Greenbelt again. Hub wanted to treat us to a good dinner since he was happy that after 2 days, we still had half the P26000/RM2000/US$540 we brought with us. I got the feeling that I've made the stupidest decision to shop in Manila and not Hong Kong this year. In the end I didn't buy a single thing except for dried mangoes and chicharon (crispy pork rinds). Dang.

Zuni Restaurant & Wine Bar was rated Manila's top restaurant by The Philippine Tatler magazine, a fact that was printed, framed and placed at the door. The restaurant did look very elegant, and it was full with expatriates dining al fresco next to a beautiful strip of garden.


Two doors from Zuni was a Japanese restaurant which was packed earlier. Love the garden.


Hub had the US Top Blade P615/RM46 /US$12.50 before tax and service. It was quite flavorful.


My choice of BBQ pork ribs was drowned in too much sauce to really taste the meat. P600/RM44/US$12


Yi's Surf N Turf was the best. P680/RM50/US$13.50

My prawn and dried tomato bisque was too tomato-ey while the soup of the day, mushroom soup, was the usual creamy stuff. With a moreau rouge from France, the meal was P2690/RM199/US$54 which was not bad considering the high rating of the restaurant. Maybe because the ribs and prawn bisque disappointed me so I rate this place 7/10. We skipped the desserts which were all western cakes and saved our stomachs for Manila's famous ice cream and leche flan and planned to listen to the lounge music at Shangri-la Hotel, which was nearby. However, both Yi and I could only manage one block before our legs gave way. We'd been walking from 10 am until 11 pm, with only meal breaks in between. I love it when my thighs quiver from fatique. No pain no loss.

Manila Dinner Day 1

For once we didn't have 5 meals a day as we usually do when traveling. Both Yi and I lost our appetite, partly because we had a slight flu and partly because of an awful lunch. We do love Filipino mango juice and their halo halo, which is like Malaysian ABC (shaved ice with beans and jelly mix) except halo halo has fresh fruits. I like the cut fresh fruits stalls at the entrance of their supermarkets. You scoop your own mix of fruits and pay according to the weight. The only fruit that disappointed was their papayas which were yellow-orange, totally bland and flavorless, unlike Malaysian papayas which are deep orange, fragrant and sweet.

The thing about confining ourselves to the CBD was that we only got to eat at malls and malls only have chain restaurants which to me are a waste of time. I wanted to eat at a family restaurant called Gateau de Manila in Quezon City but Hub wouldn't venture out of Makati, especially at night. Makati's malls are filled with American-Filipino chain restaurants but between Greenbelt 4 and 5 are many fancy restaurants and bars. We finally decided on Marciano's. We never thought we would resort to Italian food in Manila but after that lunch, we wanted to play very safe. I wanted Spanish but the others objected violently. No Chinese food either, because Filipino Chinese restaurants had Pearl S Buck-kind of names. Dragon Inn, A Thousand Flowers, that sort of stereotype names. You can tell an authentic Chinese restaurant by its name which is usually the pin yin version of the Chinese meaning, such as "Long Ke Jan" for Dragon Inn.


The food at Marciano was just okay. Bill was about P1200/RM90/US$ .The Mediterranean pizza tasted of coconut oil so I lost my appetite. Ah well. Time to loose those 2 kgs.

Jollibee's is their most successful contender to McDonalds'. We used to have one in KK but it closed despite the large Filipino population here. Yi bought some fries from Jollibee and sure enough they tasted of coconut oil, quite faintly, but it was unmistakable for me. I can take the whiff of coconut oil in Revathi's or Muthu's hair but not in my food, no.



Manila must've had its glory days in Marcos' time because most of their skyscrapers look like they were built in the 70s. The only modern and reasonably aesthetic building I saw was that of the Union Bank. With the English signs, American chain restaurants and older buildings, Makati almost feels like some city in the US. But take a taxi ride out of Makati and you will suddenly cross the line where the CBD melts into slums that are packed together on top of each other, with shacks made of cardboard, wooden planks and rusty zinc sheets. I just can't understand why the government can't provide lost cost houses for the people. There are no high rise apartments for the poor, just hectares and hectares of slum with dirt streets. Hub said it looked like Jakarta, another city you needn't visit.

I think it was Newsweek that did a feature on the happiest people in the world years ago and the happiest people in Asia according to their survey was the Filipinos. You remember that cover photo, the one with a Filipino playing a guitar standing knee-deep in water as his house floods. One reason for this happiness, I read somewhere, could be that being Catholics (there were statues of Jesus Christ everywhere; I nearly didn't recognize this Jesus), Filipinos have this belief that life on earth is full of suffering and is only temporal. Another reason postulated is that their extreme poverty keeps them from high expectations and so they appreciate everything, unlike the Japanese who, despite being the most advanced economically and technologically in Asia, are the unhappiest people because they have so much from young and so they expect more. Which is why I disagree with the new research results that showed that the Danes are are happiest people on earth on account of their easy accessibility to education, wealth and good health. I think the survey is flawed because it assumed that people who have a high quality of life are the happiest. The answer should come from the people and not from assumptions based on material achievement. The Filipinos are proof that you can be happy (or happiest) despite poverty, just as the love songs tell us that we are happy when we are loved not when we have a million $ in the bank. So based on that and our declining standards of living, I can see us Malaysians becoming an increasingly happy people too. We may even be the happiest people in Asia soon, happily banging on our gongs while haze choke our lungs.

But really, I think the main reason for Filipinos' happy state of mind is their closely knitted families. The Filipinos are very family-oriented and have a big network of relatives. It is well-known that you don't marry a Filipino, you marry the whole family including the uncles and aunties and nephews and nieces, distant cousins and yet-to-be-born relatives. Everybody looks out and helps each other.

One of the things I like about Filipinos is their friendliness and eagerness to help. Of all things, I am impressed most by their washrooms. Hospital-clean. Probably the cleanest public toilets in the world. Not a drop of water on the floor or mirror or counter or sink, and not a teeny bit of unpleasant smell. There is a cleaner in every toilet and she will clean nonstop while singing (very well too), unlike the toilet cleaners in KK who are more like minders who will stay outside while the inside is flooded, stinky and blocked. The washrooms in Manila were so squeaky clean I think I could eat in them. As a traveler, clean washrooms are my top priority. I have complained about it before and I will again: I don't see why we need to have hoses in our toilets. People who use public toilets should be expected to use paper, whatever their religion. Do the washing at home, keep the toilet floors dry and s--- free. If this practice of providing hoses and water is not stopped, we will never have clean and dry toilets.

The next thing we liked about Manila is that everybody speaks good English. So okay, they curl their 'r' too much for us (while we drop our 'r' completely, do you notice?) but at least we can communicate. I know there are Filipino readers out there but I'm going to relate a hilarious incident. Have you ever noticed that Filipinos can't or don't pronounce 'f'? The first thing Yi said when we arrived was "Everybody speaks like Marilou". Marilou was our first Filipino maid, the best maid we had who could mind the kids, clean, garden and even bake our birthday cakes. Marilou curled her 'r' and didn't have 'f' words, literally, in her speech.

We were in a cab in Clark, Hub in front and Yi and I at the back.

Cabbie: What time is your plight, Sir?
(Yi and I glanced quickly at each other. Did we hear right?)
Hub (unfazed): Our flight? Er, six but you come at four 0'clock.
Cabbie: Pour o'clock? Okay, I'll come at pour o'clock Sir.
(Yi and I did a quick glance at each other. I told Hub in Chinese excitedly, "He did it, he used 'p' instead of 'f', I told you they do that!")
Hub (unfazed, straight to the point): How do you say Filipino?
Cabbie: Pilipino? Pilipino Sir!
(Behind them, Yi and I were twisted up, laughing without making a sound and the sight of each other trying to laugh without making a sound was torturous. Our shoulders were shaking crazily.)
Me (trying to make him speak more words starting with 'p'): Er, What work do people do here, any industries, such as pisheries? There must be lots of pish here." (I nearly didn't get to finish the sentence because I was laughing as I talked and Yi had a hand over her mouth when she realised what I was doing. I saw my grinning teeth in the rear view mirror and saw the cabbie looked at me in the mirror when he answered me so I slid down the seat because I couldn't hold it anymore. Yi and I couldn't bear to see each other and we bent over behind the front seats at the opposite corners as far from each other as possible, working out our laugh without a sound. If she had let out the slightest sound, I would have lost control but we both stifled our laugh very well. My sides ached, she had tears rolling from her eyes.)
Cabbie: Yes, we have fisheries, mom (don't be offended, they call all females "mom", for "ma'am".)
(We sat up. He said "fisheries", he knew! We stopped laughing. But then he went on.)
Cabbie: We also have many pactories, mom. (We both dived quickly into the corners away from each other again, clapping our hands tightly over our mouths, tears rolling down our faces.)

Can you blame us for laughing?! I wanted to hear him swear.

But seriously, Filipinos speak the best English in the Asean region and Malaysian English ('Manglish', how apt) is at best "half bucket".

My Filipino Trip Day 1

My first trip to The Philippines was in the early 80s. I went with 3 other girls on a guided tour and we enjoyed ourselves. We did the usual Filipino tour in the 80s--checked out the museum that Imelda built and attended a ballet, saw a traditional bamboo pole dance, went to Baguio City, had a morbid drive through their Chinese cemetery (in which the dead were kept in fancy 2-storey houses, complete with gates and furniture and their family members would picnic there playing mah jong), paddled a boat in a lake, ate their famous pork dish, lechon kawali, and shopped at the top departmental store Rustan.

In the years since, I've never wanted to go back to Manila. A week ago, we were tossing the coin between KL & Krabi in Thailand and Manila. Since we could only have a couple of days off, we decided on Manila, lured by the shopping that we were told was very very good. Excited and with open minds, we arrived late Friday evening at the airport in Clark two hours behind schedule, an AirAsia norm. Clark, which used to be an American air base, and its surrounding area looked just like any small town USA. There were hardly any houses, just lots of lush green trees and flat green fields (the land is rich from the volcanic ash of Mt Pinatubo, which erupted in 1991) and the one-storey malls with American stores like McDonalds and Shakeys' and the fact that they drive on the right side of the road made me felt like I was in Pennsylvania. Earlier, straight off the plane, I went into the washroom of the airport and was surprised by the cleanliness. No water on the floor (shame on Terminal Two, KK), absolutely no smell and no litter, not even shoe prints.

The bus ride (350 pesos) at 60 kmph took 1 1/2 hours from Clark to Manila. I would have driven there in 1/2 hour. Hub had booked a service apartment in Makati, the financial and business district and the only safe and decent district of the city. He figured that a service apartment would give us more space than a hotel room. The lobby of Perla Mansion was laid in marble and the wainscoting gave the place a classic continental look. But when we stepped into our apartment, we were hit by a strong smell of bad cheese, like baby vomit. We looked at five apartments and none was decent enough (bad smell, small beds, tacky mirrored bedrooms). I was quite upset and Yi was blue from withholding her breath so Hub firmly insisted on a better room in another building that the same management was in charge of. The polite bellboy then took us to another building a couple of doors away, the BSA Suites. The apartment was very clean, odorless and spacious, except the bed was queen-sized instead of king and the sitting room furniture though 1980-ish, was still new but uncomfortable and stiff. We took it, too tired to even shower. I hoped it wasn't a sign of things to come for the rest of the trip.


Breakfast provided on Day 1 was bad, with red corned beef, so Hub cooked instant noodles which we gobbled. I had laughed at him for bringing the noodles. Now I've learnt a lesson: always bring some.


Breakfast Day 2 was so bad (the bottom of the sandwich was soaked in coconut oil), Yi and I shared our last packet of instant noodles. Hub went out for McDonalds'. Sausage McMuffin was only P25/RM2 each.

We hit the malls when they opened at 10.30 am the next day. We walked through SM Mall and Glorietta Mall, both mid-range busy malls that bored us. In the afternoon, we discovered the Ayala Center, commonly called the Greenbelt, numbered from 1 to 5. We liked the Greenbelts 4 & 5 which are modern shopping buildings joined by beautifully manicured gardens with al fresco restaurants.

I apologize to any Pinoys out there. I am ignorant about Filipino food and I know I shouldn't make a sweeping conclusion based on one meal from one particular restaurant. And our impression of a new place would be much better if we have local people or guides to tell us where to go and to what to eat. But I do write what I experience. And after Manila, I can't decide which I hate more, Greek or Filipino food. All of us lost weight after 3 days in Manila.

We wanted Filipino food and was directed to Glorietta 5. It was about 11:30 am and Gerry's Grill next to Mangan was filling up but there wasn't any customers in Mangan. I chose Mangan because it looked homey while Gerry's looked very much a American-Filipino chain restaurant. It was a meal we'll laugh and shudder about for a long time.


Recommended by the waitress, fried tawalis (P51) turned out to be deep fried crispy fish, smaller than a finger. We could eat that except that at first bite, Yi and I both tasted coconut oil which repulsed us. It was then we realized that the offending smell in the apartments , their lobbies and malls was that of coconut oil. Now while I love coconut milk, I can't stand the oil, especially when it is rancid.


Gatang sitaw at kalabasa (P55) was a mistake. I wanted gatang sigarillas (winged beans). Cooked in coconut milk like some Malaysian veg dishes, it was okay but not special.


This was a dish my former Filipina neighbor used to cook, lagat ampalaya (P55), bittergourd with eggs and tomatoes. The portion of all the dishes were very small, like appetizers, which was just as well.


Adobong baboy at manok (P79) was pork and chicken in a vinegar sauce. Adobo/adobong is one of the more famous Filipino dishes so I was surprised by the lack of flavors and taste in this dish. By now we were totally downcast. Yi mentioned that maybe Anthony Boudain's job isn't as fun as it looks, and I totally agreed. The next dish confirmed it.


Sinigang na bangus sa babayas (P185) is a famous Filipino soup made with bangus, also known as milkfish also known as fish with a million bones, and tamarind, a seed that gives a sour-sweet taste.

One of my friends has taught me to cook this soup with fresh tamarind and another has given me Knorr's sinigang soup bases and the resulting soups are mild and refreshing butMangan's sinigang babayas is the mother of all weird soups. It came hot, giving off wafts of a strange smell that blew in my direction, immobilizing me and my appetite. Hub took a bowl and said it wasn't so bad and that the bangus (which we do love to eat once in a long while at the coffee shop next to Cathay Cinema) was very tasty. Yi took A sip and spat it out, making such horrible noises and faces that I felt embarrassed for the poor waiter who was politely watching us. She took another spoonful at her father's urging, pressing her nose with her fingers. I took my spoonful. It was quite tasty, sourish and savory but that smell was hard to take! I managed about half a bowl to my daughter's surprise. Actually I did that to show her that I was open to new tastes. Hub reminded her that I drank yak tea in Sichuan. I am open to trying new food but really, sinigang babayas this strong is one of the worst soup I have ever tasted. Yi's description that it smelt like saliva and sweat was spot on.


This was the best-tasting dish of the meal, beans and fish soup.


A sampler plate of dessert that included bibingka puti with salted egg and puto bumbong. Didn't taste good or bad.

That meal so put us off that we decided to break our rule of eating local food. But to be fair, I'm sure some of our Malaysian dishes can be very repulsive to the uninitiated tastebuds. Assam laksa. Belacan. Durian. Salted fish. Some food are universally accepted at first bite, like ice cream, hamburgers, pizzas, fried rice and spring rolls, but some are just what you are used to.

And that, I think, is the reason why Filipino food isn't and will never be world-popular. It just isn't that palatable unless you grew up eating it.