Eating out

Sunday as we were leaving church, a woman handed Will a red envelope filled with McDonald's coupons. In case you are thinking this is a strange thing to be handing out in church let me explain that our church building is not what you would consider a "church". Being a city of over 12 million people who live close together, land in Manila is not abundant. Therefore many churches meet in non-traditional (at least non-American traditional) buildings. It is not uncommon for churches to meet in a movie theatre, an open air building, the atrium of a mall, or an unused floor in a building. The church we attend meets on the unused 4th floor of a kind of mall. It is actually a tiangge (pronounced chan-gay) which is a bunch of small cubicles that sell different types of things from clothes, shoes, pearls(a Filipino specialty) and jewelry, to home decor, toys, and well just stuff. It kind of reminds me of walking through booths at the homeschool convention I went to in Atlanta a few years back. So if you have been to a convention or a fair where there are different people set up selling things then you have the idea. Each Sunday we hike up to the 4th floor for services. There is one elevator, but there is always a line so we choose to walk(Allan makes us) . "It's good for us!" When church is over the tiangge is just opening up and so we leave through the mall. So now you see why Will got McDonald's coupons at church.
The purpose in telling you all of this is not about the mall and churches though that may be interesting, but to tell you about some of the restaurants we have here. We have many chains from the US that you would know, like Mickey d's, but we also have some restaurants that flopped in the US, but are thriving abroad. Remember Kenny Rodger's Roasters? We had one of those in Atlanta about 10 years ago. Also Shakey's Pizza is alive and well here too. We had one of those in Virginia when I was a kid growing up. We do have restaurants that you might find yourself eating at in your hometown: Wendy's (Will's favorite), Pizza Hut, KFC, and of course McDonald's. Also there is an Outback, a TGIFridays, and a Chili's. The fast food joints tend to be cheaper here than in the US, while the others are comparable in price--making them expensive here. If you think you will walk into Wendy's and order your favorite combo meal from the States, you would be right, but there are also more choices to appeal to the Filipino taste. Every restaurant offers rice. You can even get some combos with rice as opposed to fries. At most restaurants you can get your pizza or burger with a side of Spaghetti. Some of the things we have tried and liked are--Shrimp sandwiches at Wendys and the Grilled shrimp and mango salad at Pizza Hut--while the taste of this salad is great we have since eliminated this from our diet. Twice it has caused a little stomach upset we think due to the washing of the salad greens. We actually choose to rarely eat salads out for this reason.
One big adjustment for us has been the lack of free refills at most places. Some restaurants will allow you to pay an extra fee for a "bottomless" drink, but most do not. Below you can see a few of the coupons in Will's package and also the Pizza Hut ad for Spam pizza. By the way on a humorous note, the phone # for Pizza Hut is 911-11-11. Will thinks it is truly an emergency #. It saves him from having to eat rice!


Yummy Spam Pizza! Available with Chicken, and Spaghetti

















"Would you like some rice with that?"



Also the bottom one proves there are normal combo meals


Click on them to see them larger