Philippine Phood

Of course, I don't have any photos so we're going to settle with some mouth-watering and cringing words to place these authentic meals in front of you.

Sea Urchins:

This was a "catch of the day meal." Four of us simply walked out into the ocean and scooped up the urchins with short needles and a purplish colour to the shell. This is not the only type of sea urchin around the area, there were also small ones with long black needles, which paralyze you, adding an element of danger to the the mission. After we collected about 20 urchins unscathed we sat on the sandbar and had a sea urchin breakfast with eggs, beef-loaf (beef spam), and rice. To eat the sea urchins one of the locals, RJ, who helped gather the sea urchins used a stone as a chopping block to open the urchins and then dump out the inedible innards of the urchin. What's left is the yellow roe stuck to the inside of the shell. In typical Philippine fashion you scoop out the caviar-like and it turns into a phlegm that you flick off your fingers onto your palm and put some rice with it. The taste was really salty; duh, its from the ocean, but after I had had my fourth one I felt I wasn't a lot of sustenance. talking with my cousins afterwards, they rarely eat, but its a rite of passage for tourists in the Philippines.

Siopoa:

This was probably my favourite authentic Philippine food. It looks like a dumpling, but its stuffed with a top-notch meatball and a slice of hard boiled egg. The outer layer is actually about a centimeter or steamed bread  with is super soft. A siopoa is about the size of your palm. The typical way to eat them is jam a ketchup bottle through the steamed bread and inject the ketchup inside. It was so good I hate 4 in one sitting.

Halo-Halo:

I googled this one make sure I got the spelling right and although these looked much more decadent than the one I had its follows the same principle. Halo-halo means stir-stir in the island's indigenous language, so the dessert is a layer of fruits, ice, milk, then Rice Krispies and Cornflakes for garnish and crunch. This was really tasty, but I don't have a sweet tooth, but its like a milkshake, just not pureed. To make it less appealing too, I had this after 4 siopoas.

Mangos:

Korea doesn't really have Mangos so this was a big deal to me. Also I had never really hopped on the mango train back in Canada either. I will now though, those sweet and juicy fruits are one of the many foods I can't say no to. I'll suck that amorphous seed til its dry. They also complements all the food I had in the Philippines, except the next one.

Coconut Wine:

Once again, a rite of passage for the tourist. Its tapped out of the palm tree and mixed with something to give it a red colour. To be honest it smells worse than it tastes, and it tastes pretty bad. It has the oak flavour of wine, but its a palm tree, and, bonus, it contains bits precipitate I can only assume belong to the tree. The side affect of drinking this is falling asleep within the hour.

The Burgers:

Maybe it was just Siquijor Island but the only burger is one that requires two hands and a crocodile jaw.  The first one I had was a chicken burger with mango salsa from JJ Backpackers. It was dynamite, there's a real sense of empowerment holding a kilo of food in two hand. The patty was probably the circumference of my neck and an inch thick. Thankfully the buns were made of thinwich bread. Mango salsa is the best by the way. The next burger I had was more well none as a jawbreaker: Big Billy Burger from Capilay's Bar. This was breakfast, brunch and a burger all crammed in between two typical sesame seed buns. Egg, ham, pineapple, two patties, a handful of shredded lettuce, tomoato, cheese, onion, mayo, ketchup and a chipotle sauce. It was ginormous, and probably the biggest burger I've ever eaten.  Needless to say I felt like walking home as opposed to riding a scooter over bumpy terrain.

I also tried a couple dishes from other parts of the world, and they made it work too. It was some A+ food courtesy of my guides and hostesses in the Philippines.