To heck with Michelin, lets award street vendors, and my wife
Analysis and Opinion
By Joe America
Michelin tasters secretly entered the Philippines and ate their way across the country a few months ago. We’ll get their results later this year. See “MICHELIN Guide: Philippine-based chefs weigh in on the arrival of prestigious guide“.
My son likes to watch a You Tube chef who circles the globe eating at Michelin three star restaurants and reporting on it. Wonderfully creative dishes, excellent wines. It’s lovely, viewing the inside of high falutin’ joints I’ll never visit during this lifetime. Seems to me it’s a playground for the rich, who may or may not be snooty.
To heck with that. Let’s give awards to real people like the guy with a coconut cart on a side street in Cebu who serves buko for 45 pesos a nut. Or the sidewalk vendors dishing out chicken and pork on a stick for a few pesos, if their food is fresh and their layout clean. Or the rustic beach resorts where Mama sweats out a variety of plates because the menu says she must.
Or my wife who cooks meals that are so delicious I keep coming after them like a health addict, because they are so tasty. And healthy. All Filipino. One hundred percent, I’m eating what you’re eating, and you or your wife probably deserve stars as well. Because Filipino cuisine, otherwise known as food, is delicious, and healthy.
Okay, okay, yes there’s too much pork fat but, good gracious, where else can you find heaven on earth? We should cut ourselves some slack on that.
We buy the American stuff now and then, mostly beef because Philippine cows are made of saddle leather. Well, if you pound it with a big hammer and marinate it for a year and a half, it’s not bad.
On the other hand, my wife’s cooking is five star on a three star scale. And THAT, my friends, is the national norm.
I’m committed to living another several decades because the eating here is worth it.
The politics sure as hell aren’t.
_________________________
Cover photo from Guide to the Philippines article “Philippines Street Food Guide: What to Eat”.
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
We eat to live and we live to eat.
Well, I’ve certainly found riches in Filipino foods. I mean, bamboo shoots in my salad, how cool is that?
very cool
I swear by my cooking. hahaha
That’s much much better than swearing AT it, lol!
I sing while cooking! the saying goes, singing while cooking over the stove makes one’s hair turn gray. my hair still got its natural color and I am still singing, happy as larry. so I continue singing.
Who’s larry, haha? Keep singing. My wife also sings now and then, and can also be seen occasionally in front of the bathroom mirror cursing and pulling out gray hairs. Not that that should disturb your relationship with larry at all.
People also ask
Where did the saying happy as Larry come from?
Larry Foley was an australian boxer who never lost a fight. His last fight was in the 1870’s, he was paid the vast sum of £1000 and won the fight – “hence as happy as Larry”
I got the expression from my aussie friends. larry was a bare knuckle fighter who always win.
That makes me pleased as punch!
cheers!
In my humble opinion, Cebu is the food capital of the Philippines, though I may be biased. It’s also hard to ignore Ilo-Ilo. In Zamboanga one can find many dishes descended from Mexican cuisine cross pollinated with flavors familiar in Malaysia.
Not sure how to upload pictures on here, but I did do my small bit selling “pungko-pungko” in Cebu during the pandemic. I’m told that even now there are copy-cat street and neighborhood sellers of my Vietnamese inspired seafood pulutan in Mactan. The availability of fresh shellfish and seafood in Cebu wet markets can rival any wet market I’ve been to in SEA.
It will be interesting to read Michelin’s review of Cebu restaurants. I’m not that familiar with the city eateries but know lechon is highly rated there.
good lord! I would very much like to hear again the transcript of how the michelin crew pronounced lechon. I heard them say, lesion as in lesion of the liver, yak! lesion is such awful ailment that requires medical attention. and that reminds me of foie de gras that is now banned worldwide for being such product of a brutal way of geese being forced feed!
I hope now that the michelin people have got their pronunciation of lechon correct, else people are turned off their food.
🤣😂🤣🏆
I’m not a huge fan of Michelin’s haute cuisine focus, but I do like their expansion as sort of a travel guide. I prefer Anthony Bourdain’s approach that appreciates the cultures he visited and interacted with.
In Cebu province there is a constant battle among the locals between which city has the best lechon: Cebu City, Talisay, or Carcar. All three cities would agree though, that “Cebuchon” is the best in all the Philippines. I’m inclined to agree as well. Even in the US if I’m looking for Filipino-style lechon, I’ll seek out a Cebuano owned lechoneria, or I’ll make the lechon belly version at home.
The best part about the compactness of the Philippines is if you want to try all 3 styles of Cebu lechon, on your next visit to Cebu you can try in Cebu:
1.) Cebu City style: Tatang’s Lechon
2.) Carcar style: House of Lechon
3.) Talisay style: Ruthy’s Lechon
Terrific! Thank you for the tips!
joey, is this the pungko pungko you mean? pungko pungko sa fuente in cebu city is a kind of eatery that specialised in pungko pungko. I used to live not far from fuente osmenya circle.
I cannot look at the food, sorry. too rich. I’d be happy as larry to have a piece of plain pandesal sliced with daing and mint chutney. and a cup of mild green tea pls.
https://www.delightful.ph/pungko-pungko-sa-fuente-a-bite-of-cebus-soul
Pungko Pungko sa Fuente is probably more touristy oriented, but locals with some extra spending money do seem to go there to flex on socmed. I’ve been to that eatery once before, but I didn’t pay that time. I didn’t realize it was pricey.
I think most Sugbuanons refer to any street side food stall selling fried and grilled foods as pungko pungko though. Like this:
https://cebuinsights.com/food/filipino-food/famous-pungko-pungko-food-in-cebu/
I usually grab some fried food from the local places in Pajac or Basak, Lapu-Lapu City, though I don’t do the squatting part. I’d just fall over at the slightest wind.
pungko means to squat and the 1st thing that comes to my mind is squatters! and cebu has plenty of them.
it should have been clarified that pungko pungko sa cebu means to sit down, squat, and grab a meal. there, no ambiguity.
ahem, been to singapore? there are actually squat toilets in the airports! pungko pungko na inodoro, haha.
Ahhhh, Asian cultures are not European, as my knees will never squat. I envy those who carry their chairs with them and don’t have to put their butts on the ground to rest, and can find relief without a porcelain chair. Filipinos should not worry at all about what westerners think about anything.
about squats, sometimes, I truly wonder about sumo wrestlers, those celebrated men mountain. they squat low and squarely stare at their opponent before a bout. from a perspective of a physiotherapist, sumo squatting is near impossible feat to accomplish, the pressure on the knee joints must be terribly enormous! ligaments would crack, hard pressed to support those extra kilos in body weight plus the pull of gravity, sumos would get plonk down unceremoniously hard and unable to get up without help. and yet, from squatting position, sumos can easily spring to action and launch an attack, pushing opponent off the ring.
Oh, I thought you were going to say “Pushing opponents off the dinner table.”
The only Michelin-starred street food stall in Bangkok is Raan Jay Fai. It’s run by the legendary chef Jay Fai, known for her oversized goggles and wok hei cooking style. Her restaurant is famous for dishes like the crab omelet and drunken noodles, and it was also featured on Netflix’s “Street Food” series.
Here’s a more detailed look:
My comment:
If they can do it so can we.
All vloggers i glanced upon gets turned off by balut. They don’t get turned off by bats and snakes?
have you seen century eggs? they look gross as. I prefer balut, sometimes balut pinoy. I always tell my foreign friends when they come here for a visit that balut is only for those with strong stomach. many thought it a challenge and yes, they did eat balut, sisiw, guts and all! and they lived to tell the tale, even have vids of it to show to the people back home.
Famously in 2002 on the US reality game show “Fear Factor,” there was the first (that I’m aware of) “balut challenge” where the mostly White contestants gagged, unable to stomach eating balut. Funnily enough Americans generally don’t have a problem with eating other “gross” things, like offal meats. Disgust is culturally subjective.
Nowadays balut is quite commonly eaten in places with large SEA diaspora populations. Balut is more associated with Vietnamese cuisine here in Southern California despite the local Filipino diaspora being larger than the local Vietnamese diaspora. See, 2nd and 3rd gen Fil-Ams stopped eating balut so much, if at all, developing a sort of disgust to the food, though sometimes the kids will eat penoy if they are told it is also a fertilized duck egg (before embryonic development). Laotians, Cambodians, and Thais also eat balut often. Amusingly, plenty of White Americans also eat balut now if the eggs are served by their SEA in-laws or friends.
one day, food activists will maybe ban balut. they way they have forced the french to give up on pate de foie gras and the brutal way the french treated the goose for its prized liver. them activists may feel sorry for the little sisiw in the balut who never get to see the light of day.
maybe not, balut is not yet at the category as the french geese to catch attention of these do gooders.
AFAIK, foie gras is protected explicitly under French law.
Back in college, a few classmates were rich kids who had too much time on their hands — they were members of eco-terrorist groups like ALF, ELF, Sea Shepherd. I have an old shirt somewhere I used to wear to annoy them. The shirt said PETA — People for the Eating of Tasty Animals.
peta, people for ethical treatment of animals, the org has caused headache to people who make living in abattoirs, animal husbandry, animal processing plants, etc. most dont eat meat.
PETA has been long exposed for running animal kill operations, in which they reason killing a “rescued” animal is more ethical than allowing humans to adopt a pet into a loving home which they deem akin to “slavery.” Well, they seem to attract mentally ill people. I have a number of pets, which are all treated lovingly. Sometimes I feel like the pets eat better than I do.
pets end up owning you, going to vet when pets are sick now commands hefty pet insurance.
Yes they made it taste like a hundred year egg with a little sulphur oxide…jk
they look like the eyes of mad moody, one of the character in harry potter film.
Yeah the look a like of the one from lord of the rings
I recall reading a comment from a vietnamese local eatery in south vietnam that has gotten a michelin star and how the owner regretted having gotten it. her usual happy and outgoing street customers (mga suki) now rarely visit her eatery. they can barely afford the prices kasi, tumaas e, and the clientele’s dress code that now included international tourists and gourmands have improved greatly that the locals felt intimidated, outclassed and outspent.
All this talk of Filipino food made me hungry. Tonight’s dinner was pinakupsan, Visayan crispy pork belly slow-fried in its own fat, with a side of kangkong stir-fried in garlic ginamos.
mine was leftover seafood paella with baby octupuses, clams and mussels washed down with what was left of the chianti brought by my friends days ago. the same friends taught me how to cook seafood lasagne with crabmeat. behind their backs, I experimented with changing the lasagne sheets with layers of grilled eggplant and char grilled camote cut lengthwise. lot of work involved, I promised never to do it. if only I can find a resto that does the same so I can have it deliveroo-ed.
oftentimes, I go off food. fasting seven days a week, mostly after 7pm when I eat nothing until 7am, only water in between. beats having to purge and vomit. the way I eat, many thought I am feeding tapeworms! they just did not I fast routinely. going to bed on empty stomach makes for sound sleep! healthy without the associated diseases of obesity like diabetes, etc, and thin as ozempic pole sans the side effects.
You may have reinvented parmigiana di melanzane alla siciliana (sometimes called melanzane alla parmigiana) — that’s baked layered eggplant usually in a tomato sauce, but the Sicilians like to put seafood too. My childhood Tuscan neighbor who insisted I call her nonna (grandma) taught me all about central Italian cooking, though if she were still alive would be horrified I learned dishes from other regions of Italy during travels, especially the Lombards she so despised.
Speaking of tapeworms, have you tried the Visayan sometimes-delicacy tamasok? I’ve pulled them straight out of gapo (driftwood), eaten raw with chili suka or deep fried. Absolutely gross to see, to be quite honest, with a taste I can only describe as barely palatable, but life isn’t finished until one tries something at least once.
tamasok are like barnacles. I dont eat anything raw except ripe fruits. though in samar, they eat tarukug, similar to tamasok, but tastier with fresh grated cocunut.
I feel no great sadness knowing my life will not be finished when I die, lol.
I think, I am the only asian who has not mastered the use of chopsticks! and will probly go to my grave without having ever learned it. I eat using my hand when cutleries are not available. going to korean and japanese restos does not pose much problem to me. if people are scandalized to see me using knife and fork, serves them right for looking. though, I am offered finger bowl often, to wash my hands after eating and with scented hot towel too. she is ronin! I heard that often whispered about me.
Hahaha, well, as my grandad used to say as grandma got upset that we were not using the utensils, “fingers were made before forks”. He’s the same grandad who showed us how to poke a hole in an egg shell with a pin and suck out the insides and drink them raw. He taught my mother how to swim by throwing her out of the boat and into the cold lake at age 2. And he taught me how to shoot a .22 at age 9. Don’t mind people who can’t mind their own business. Not worth the trouble.
thanks, I like your grandad.
Completely OT as this is about stuff you can’t eat..
https://x.com/ABSCBNNews/status/1935933424948363348
“The Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation is launching its inaugural memorial lecture to mark the fourth death anniversary of the former president Benigno Aquino III, focusing on the late president’s legacy and the maritime rights of the Philippines.”
I mentioned the lack of legacy among great Presidents of the Philippines, as in it was as of what they had done was just as easily forgotten as what haffen vella after they left or died, leaving the way the country does things essentially unaltered.
Working on a legacy as in making people do things differently after you are gone is the mark of the best leaders. Unless most Filipinos just do whatever today’s boss tells them..
In the modern era there seem to be two ways to go about keeping the ember of institutional legacy alive: the myth making process and foundations. Of course in countries where the peoples have a long historical memory like many European and mainland Asian countries, there seems to be a skew towards the national mythology. But in younger nations still unsure about their own identity, myth making to establish a national narrative has a strong allure. There is a danger however in too much myth making — nearly every American schoolchild understands George Washington’s “I cannot tell a lie” as an Aesopican parable on the importance of morality, but I do wonder what Filipino schoolchildren make of the exaggerated alleged exploits of the Katipunan insisted on as valid truth focusing more on an exercise of power.
In the larger framing of history, the US is also a young nation bereft of the cultural and institutional memory of European and mainland Asian peoples which have already existed for thousands of years. So the culture and institutions of the US have no other option but to be built on the collective experiences of peoples of other lands who came to American shores and became Americans. What other way could the early Philippines could have gone if leaders respected and appreciated the disparate nature of the archipelago?
Well, the only other Philippine presidential foundation I’m aware of is the Elpidio R. Quirino Foundation, which as far as I’m aware exists as little more than a Facebook group for that complicated Filipino statesman. Here in the US, the Rutherford B. Hayes Foundation was the first US presidential foundation established — for the purpose of rehabilitating the image of a president who came in as a reformer and ended up better known as one who capitulated to a nascent neo-Confederate sentiment by ending the Reconstruction early. Franklin D. Roosevelt has the first official presidential library established in his name to promote his legacy and works, stating the US Presidential Library System that has become an American tradition.
The late President PNoy did accomplish many good works that ultimately were misunderstood by a people more familiar with leaders shooting from the hip, ruling by fiat. Let’s hope that Aquino Foundation has started something akin to the US Presidential Library system, and that future Philippine national myths start to be based in moral lessons from past leaders’ sacrifices and an forward-thinking idealism of what the Philippines can become.
uy, that’s lie! many filipinos do honor and remember them legacies, we just dont go shouting and screaming and making big show about it. we have better things to do than superficially pakitang tao, like making honest living and paying off mortage.
president marcos found this out when he tried to cancel edsa uno anniversary on feb 25 this year, and made it working holiday instead of a nonworking holiday, did it very subtlety too.
but people noticed, did not need the president’s blessing to celebrate feb 25 the edsa uno anniversary. celebrated it with the usual splendor, treated it as nonworking holiday too. down their tools and did not go to work, and joined marches to commemorate the sacrifices of the past. nagsindi pa nga kami ng kandila. if that means nothing to you, your loss, not ours!
If there’s anything I’ve learned in years of visiting is that Filipinos do love their non-working holidays. Though in working class informal settlements, I find it hard to sleep when the neighbor is doing videoke until 2-3 AM. Once my host and I were quite annoyed about the drunken off-key singing, so I suggested we notify the tanod. The host’s reply was “The neighbor whose singing is off-key IS the tanod.” I guess one just gets used to things like that, that are part of the charms of the Philippines.
I used to be one of them, noise makers, then I gave up on suntory. did grievous bodily to meself! once drunk. managed to walk on high heels the two kilometers from the boom gate that I apparently pilfered, dragging it all the way home, my dress hiked up, my feet straining on asphalt, bag on my shoulder, the beloved high heels survived the long walk, but not my poor feet. I lost three well pedicured toenails, my feet were rubbed raw with blisters and badly swollen, couldnt walk for two weeks, my feet in bandages, and could not even take a bath. my bandaged feet had to be encased with layers of plastic bags secured at the top with duck tape before I can have punas, helped by a nurse, so humiliating!
my friends were no help at all. they laughed at my suffering. and laughed even more when police came to retrieve the boom gate and I have to pay fine. they were in stitches, I previously, apparently told police in my drunken fuddled mind that I took the boom gate home coz it would make good fire wood.
That’s good to know. President Aquino drove a post into the ground with that arbitration win. Atop it is a big Filipino flag. He also managed government like a responsible business rather than borrow from the future to live luxuriously and show good.
I am incensed! instead of showing support for estados unidos for bombing iran, president marcos urged for diplomacy. jesus terribly christ! show support, man, dont preach! we are close ally of estados unidos, and in times like this, we should support and pat trump on the back for doing the dirty job no one wants to do, but wish they could. iran supports terrorism, hamas, huutus, hezbollah, etc. now that iran is bombed and denuclearized, we have chance to talk peace.
Most Americans oppose going into war with Iran. President Marcos is way more reasonable and sane than Trump.
Nothing like street-cooked barbecue and cold beer to end the day.
Yes indeed. Picnic time.
Back in my day, 60s and 70s, there was that place at the corner of Vito Cruz and South Expressway that had street-cooked barbecue. They would send their aroma far and wide.
Yum. Judging from how high they pile the sticks of meat at some vendors, the market is HUGE. Well, everyday Filipinos don’t eat much, I think. Compared to those porker rich people. Dinner on a stick is terrific.
I’d be happy if my fave little eatery gets one michelin star for being exceptional eatery for its category. ingredients being of quality, no adulterated food, there is harmony in flavor, the cook has attitude that shows love of good food, and food served has consistency that what is served today is just as delicious as those served yesterday. I liked its halo-halo a lot. the crab omelet is divine as well as its crab relleno, and the seafood basket is good size for communal eating.
two michelin stars might be too much for my fave little eatery for that would mean the eatery is worth the detour. with the traffic around, both pedestrian and motor vehicle, the smog is sometimes health threatening and with flood that submerged street, access to the eatery can be summat problematic.
three star to mean the eatery is excellent in all aspect. my fave little eatery can surely dream. some seats are cracked and lumpy, staff looked harried, but efficient and attentive. and there is a jokey sign that says tip is not customary so enjoy your food. we tip anyway, staff must be saints to put up with us, noisy eaters that overstayed.
Boodle Fight!
Haha, of course! A Filipino cultural icon of eating! It should be an Olympic event.
100 percent.