The Last Supper

Wait, before we end the Philippines blog, we would like to share about our last authentic Filipino meal.  We happened upon a Filipino buffet for a decent price.  Peering in, Ryan was a bit skeptical.  We decided to venture in and see what kinds of foods they were serving.  On each of the three long tables of food there were several, I mean several, plates of unique, traditional Filipino cuisine and odd, flavorful sauces to go with each of the dishes.  I had read about many of the dishes that were present and was very excited to try each one.  Ryan decided that the foods looked doable and so we sat down, sipped our waters, and grabbed plates.  There were so many different flavors to the dishes. You really have to eat slowly to be able to fully tast the uniqueness of each one.  One dish could taste like it was drenched in vinegar, another saturated in peanut oils and coconut milk, and another battered in thick, spicy curry with tamarind.  The foods were quite rich.  I don’t have all the Filipino names for each dish, but I will try to explain what were in each one.  

1)      Karekare:  a thick oxtail soup, orange in color with fat slices of tripe.  The taste was like a peanut curry.  The sauce added to it was a dark fish paste

2)      Sinigang:  A sour chicken soup with tamarind.  It tasted like drinking hot vinager, so if you like to drink vinager, this one is for you!

3)      Inihaw:  Grilled milk fish (which we also had in San Juan) and grilled beef and chicken skewers.  The sauces included a light, sour shrimp/rice paste and a dark fish paste.

4)      Longganiza:  savory sliced Filipino sausages

5)      Slices of red, red pork that were marinated in a sweet and sour sauce.  Kind of like char siu, but much more oily

6)      Yellow curried, mochi rice, much like Chinese jung, but filled with bits of pork, carrots and peas.  This didn’t have much flavor.

7)      Pancit:  Noodles with carrots, cabbage, and chicken.  Sauce flavor was patis

8)      Slices of bitter melon, tomatoes and tiny dried whole guppy fish

9)      Fresh white crab meat covered in a coconut sauce with jack fruit

10)   Yellow papaya salad with carrots and hot peppers.  Sauce was a peppered, vinigar patis.

11)   A tempura battered lettuce leaf that could be topped with a savory yogurt sauce.  This was our favorite!  Crunchy on the outisde and creamy in the center!

12)   Grape seaweeds (see picture) dipped in a fish sauce.  When eaten, the little grapes explode in your mouth with salty but sweet goodness!

13)   Battered and fried whole baby fish, much like Shishamo (eaten all in one bite).  Good with a little salty and spicy sauce.

14)   Blood meat, Ryan passed on this one, but I liked it!

15)   For dessert, we had marshmellows and a chocolate fountain, rice mochi, taro and coconut tapioca and halohalo, which is kind of like shaved ice, but you could put whatever toppings with this dish (jello, azuki beans, tapioca balls) and cover it in evaporated milk and honey sauce.  

 Ryan's First Plate, yummmm

Seaweed is good

U'i tackling the vineagar soup

U'i sizing up a filipino snail in shell, most likely reflecting on its distant cousins in hawaii that have been eating her garden.  Damn slugs.

This morning however was a little rough, won’t go into specifics, but it was well worth it!  We are getting ready to head to Indonesia.  Anxious as ever and making sure our bags don’t exceed 44 lbs.!

Alohas