Food Fails In The Philippines

Cooking in an Airbnb is hard. Cooking in an Airbnb in a different country is even harder! Not only are you lacking a stocked pantry, but you’re also limited to whatever utensil they have. The staples you do purchase are often just a little different than what you’re used to. Cooking in Costa Rica was hard, but I got the hang of it. We ate out the majority of the time we were in Japan and Guam had almost everything I was used to back home. Cooking in the Philippines so far has been interesting and I’ve already had so many food fails I had to share them.

Grocery Delivery Abroad: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

We were very excited to figure out that we could easily get groceries delivered to our condo. We are using the Grab app, which is what we use for rideshares and it’s very straight forward. It would be a daunting task if we had to navigate the streets of Manila for every grocery run, so I am beyond grateful for this. We haven’t really experienced any mistakes with our orders, but we’ve ordered things that did not taste like what we expected. We’ve tried looking at the food labels, but they’re not included online. It’s not your fault Philippines – we just don’t know your food.

I tried making our traditional Saturday morning pancakes and they tasted like cornbread. I was having flashbacks to Costa Rica when I had to mix them in a sauce pan.

There’s no coffee maker here, so we’ve tried several different variations of coffee we can find at the store. Believe it or not, the instant coffee is the best so far. All the other coffee includes sugar. Even when it clearly says “black coffee”. The one in the middle is a pouch of liquid coffee – I’ve never seen that before.

Always Read the Label

I ordered this specific mayonnaise because it was smaller and I liked the way it dispensed. What I failed to notice is that it is cream cheese flavored. I haven’t been brave enough to try this yet. It sounds disgusting!

Rice and beans has been a staple in our diet since we left. It’s quick, balanced, and can be made several different ways with a variety of toppings. I tried making this tonight and we were all looking forward to it. I knew the beans we ordered said “salted black beans”, but they were the only canned beans they had. In the states they sell “unsalted black beans” so I didn’t think much of it saying it was salted. When I opened the can I could immediately smell the salt. I tried one and it tasted awful, almost as if it were pickled. Dave read the salt content and 1/6 of the tiny can we purchased had more than 1/2 our daily recommended salt intake. I was planning on using three cans for our meal.

We had the rice I had already prepared with butter on it and I made some quesadillas. The tortillas we bought were stuck together and at this point I felt like I was getting punked. It wasn’t a pretty meal, nor was it balanced, but it tasted great!

I’m going to keep ordering and eventually we’ll figure out the correct items we want. Something we’ve realized during our travels is that our expectations don’t always match reality. Whether it’s hilarious mispronunciations of a foreign language or unexpected grocery deliveries, memories are made in the most surprising ways!