Food 1: Breakfast

I haven't really taken the opportunity to describe mealtimes here, so now seems as good a time as any to start. Overall, though, three key notions sum up my impression of Filipino food: sweet, fatty, and frequent. There's a lot to say about food, so I'll break this up into digestible blog entries so as not to overwhelm you.

First up: the most important meal of the day. The classic Filipino breakfast consists of rice, egg, and meat or fish. Garlic rice is not out of the question. The egg is scrambled, boiled, or fried, whereas the meat/fish is usually dried and then cooked in a sweetish sauce, actually much tastier than it sounds.

When I was staying at the hotel, there was a little buffet table by reception which served some other popular breakfast options, including sweet soft white buns (pan de sal), on which one spreads coconut or purple yam jam. Macaroni soup in an opaque white broth also made regular appearances. A lone box of sugary cereal was often left untouched as milk was usually absent. (Supermarket cereal shelves are nearly barren of non-sugary offerings. I think I saw corn flakes once at a western-style supermarket.)

Round this all off with a hottish Nescafe seasoned with coffeemate and lots of sugar (two spoons or envelopes of each seems to be the norm) and you're done. Hurry up and digest fast, though, because merienda is on its way.