THE SOUTH EAST ASIA YOU FAILED TO EAT

  
This is lunch today. Looks like a plate of golden fossilized decepticons but tastes mighty fine. These are lightly battered mini crabs: crispy, crunchy, salty, and possibly sky high in cholesterol, but of the best possible sort.

As you can see, the shell of the crab is removed and everything goes in. Yes, all eight feet. It sounds alarming in theory but extremely delicious in practice.

I also had a bowl of piping hot nilaga. This is pork nilaga with peppercorns, potatoes, corn, and pechay, a bok choy variant. It can also be made with beef and marrow.

  
The broth can calm even a newly baptized cat. It has a rounded yet subtle flavor. This is the kind of food you want when you are ill and craving the comforts of home.

I do not know if you can get these couple of dishes anywhere else. Maybe they are uniquely Filipino. Come to think of it, the food we have here has yet to explode globally.

It is very common for me to read daily of travelers food tripping across South East Asia but somehow The Philippines get bypassed. Shame, because we eat damn fabulous here.