Confusing Jollibee Menu

Chicken with spaghetti and hard boiled eggs?

[R1] Right???

They have a terrible artist. Their mashed potatoes look more like a caramel sundae.

Jollibee is the most popular fast food chain in the Philippines. I’ve never been, but I hear the chicken is good, as is the mango pie.

Chickenjoy!

Their spaghetti has hotdogs and ketchup in it.

They have several stores in the US. I’ve never eaten there.

Even I wouldn't eat here.

[R3] it looks like mashed potatoes of the heavens.

I went with a coworker I'm quite close with, a very nice older Filipina lady. She was excited to show me the fast food/comfort food from back home. She ordered for the two of us. It was hands down the most unpleasant fast food meal I have ever had. The chicken was barely okay, it was just greasy fast food fried chicken. Popeye's is far superior. The burger was absolutely grim and I did not finish it. Both the meat and the bun had a cheap, industrial quality and unpleasant texture. French fries were undercooked and limp. To my horror, she had also chosen for me a halo halo, a parfait style dessert made of other dessert items, like jello cubes, artificial whipped topping, bits of tropical fruit, beans, corn and very bad quality ice cream. The colors were vivid green, purple and yellow, it was absolutely full of artificial colors and flavors. I felt like I got cancer just from looking at it. I choked down a few bites to be polite, and mumbled something about being so full already. It was difficult, she's such a sweet person but the food was so so bad, yet she was absolutely thrilled. It really demonstrated how childhood experience and nostalgia can affect your perception. What was interesting was the people watching. The restaurant was full of happy, lively Filipina ladies, their children, and a few dour, silent, old white men who had been dragged there by their Filipina wives.

BTW, I did not voice any of these feelings to my friend. I put on a game face, thought of England, and were are still friends years later.

There is a Jollibee at the end of my old block in Woodside. I was sooo excited to try it out based on its reputation and being hungry after moving all day. Sad to report that it was so greasy and tasteless and disappointing that I never went back. Still, it was packed every day, all day long. The people who like it can't get enough.

[quote]The restaurant was full of happy, lively Filipina ladies, their children, and a few dour, silent, old white men who had been dragged there by their Filipina wives.

The American fucking dream.

[R10] I had a similar experience with a colleague of mine, who sounds just like the lady you’re describing. She found out that I was just eating a granola bar for lunch, and decided to buy lunch for me. She walked into the office with a smorgasbord from Kentucky Fried Chicken and said, “you need nourishment!” So sweet of her, so I indulged for the day.

Op = fetal alcohol syndrome baby who cannot read basic, dumbed down fast food menu.

Op = fetal alcohol syndrome baby who cannot read basic, dumbed down fast food menu.

[R14] & [R15] fetal alcohol syndrome baby you cannot post on DL.

the phillipines have some weird foods. read about banana ketchup, which was served on top of spaghetti after tomatoes became hard to source (i think it was a wartime workaround that became popular)

Filipino food is shit. The worst food in Asia, hands down, and among the worst cuisines in the world. It has absolutely nothing to recommend it. They even manage to screw up roast pork. Avoid.

[quote]BTW, I did not voice any of these feelings to my friend. I put on a game face, thought of England, and were are still friends years later.

You have good manners. That's how it's done.

[quote]Their spaghetti has hotdogs and ketchup in it.

Sounds wonderful!

[quote]They have several stores in the US.

They have at least 40 and are expanding. They just announced they're planning a US HQ building in West Covina (CA).

"Spaghetti with Yum." I'm dead. That's the funniest menu item I've ever seen. And I love the picture of the rice where it looks like a sandwich.

Of course it’s in West Covina.

My husband used to work with Filipino men. He said they all ate a great deal of pork, spam, and processed meats. For them, this was prestige and “nirvana”. He told them that diet was the reason they were all on high blood pressure and cholesterol medication. But, they dismissed him.

Deep fried balut in the menu?

🎶🎶West Covina, CALIFORNIA!!! 🎶🎶

That HQ building is right next to the IKEA. There used to be a Montgomery Ward store on that site.

Filipino food is inedible!

Emmy eats Jollibee.

Bah, R18! Filipino food is delicious. But don't go to a fast food chain and think that that represents the best of Filipino food. Jollibees serves easy to make comfort food. Real Filipino food requires fresh ingredients and hours to prepare. Also, each province has its own special dishes and preparations. It is said that the best Filipino cuisine comes from Pampanga.

The late Anthony Bourdain claimed the best lechon he had ever had was in the Philippines, from Cebu.

OP, Thank you for starting this thread as there's a location in Vegas but it's out of the way.

Posters thanks for your comments but I'm getting heartburn just reading them.

Why can't we keep them from opening this dreadful restaurant here in the U.S.?

[quote]Posters thanks for your comments but I'm getting heartburn just reading them.

Thanks from me too. I was considering a visit once the hoopla dies down, but I won't bother now.

A Jollibee opened here recently and got a lot of media coverage because people were lined up around the block waiting to get in. Some started lining up the day before. Most of them were Filipino, I think, so it's understandable that they would feel nostalgic for the chain and its food.

[quote]Why can't we keep them from opening this dreadful restaurant here in the U.S.?

Because it's too hard to build a wall in the Pacific Ocean.

Surprising that Filipinos are comparatively so thin if this is the kind of food that they love unless of course they only eat very small portions of it.

R24, Why didn't they go semi-vegitarian like the very poor of the 3rd world that lived on beans and legumes with a lot of spices and perhaps a vegetable garden?

R39, Pampanga recipes linked. Honestly only the deserts look appealing. Crickets?

Rebecca [R26], why not post the video?

R35, because they’re in the West, shop in the West, and can afford to eat this way all the time. In the Philippines only the rich can eat this way.

Vietnamese food (at least three distinct cuisines), Chinese food (who knows how many great cuisines), Thai food >>>>> Pinoy food.

The well-to-do in the Philippines eat Western and Chinese/Thai buffets/troughs in malls and hotels.

Philippine cuisine, like its Pacific Island / Austronesian counterparts, is heavy on seafood, chicken, and pork since seafood is abundant and chickens and pigs don't require a lot of land to raise. The American GIs introduced canned meats like spam, corned beef, and vienna sausages since they were easy to store, easy to serve, and didn't spoil in the tropics. They have since become common comfort food and lunch and snack items in the Philippines, Guam, Hawaii, S. Korea, etc.

The Spanish introduced their passion for food and huge barrio fiestas. So, whether a Filipino is rich or poor, he will splurge on food and prepare enough dishes to feed an entire neighborhood. If you are an overnight guest at a Filipino household, you will be served a big breakfast, a big lunch, a big dinner, and in-between meals called meriendas. They take their food seriously, so the person here who routinely dismisses Philippine cuisine as "shit" or "the worst food in Asia" is very insulting.

^. Insulting but true. Generosity of spirit has nothing to with weird food combinations.

^ to do with ..

Weird to you. You are applying your cultural sensibilities and labeling them weird. Weird is fine, but does that make it "shit"?

It's fine if you don't like certain foods or cuisines. That's your personal preference, but dismissing an entire nation's cuisine as inferior, the worst, or shit is puerile, insulting, and ethnocentric.

The Jollibee food looks boring, bland and frankly, a little nauseating.

If Filipino food was any good there would be Filipino restaurants around like French, Thai, Italian, etc.

There aren’t any except this Johnny come lately Jollibee.

Draw your own conclusions.

There are Filipino restaurants wherever there are large populations of Filipinos. If you are in the LA area, don't go to Jollibees for your first taste Filipino cuisine. Go to any of these restaurants:

But no Filipino restaurants where there a few or no Filipinos, unlike Chinese and Mexican restaurants.

[quote]"Spaghetti with Yum." I'm dead. That's the funniest menu item I've ever seen.

A bit of levity is in order after sobbing through one of their commercials.

Let's be honest here, some cuisine are better than others.

No one ever praised Netherland cuisine for a good reason, it's just not good.

I don't know about Phillipino cuisine, but Jollibee looks disgusting. Spagheti with ketchup and vienna? Really?

And it's not racist to point that processed food and processed meat ain't good for you. Whatever your cultural background it's shit.

On a brighter note, the mango cake from Red Ribbon bakery (owned by Jollibee Corp.) is fantastic. Light, fresh, and not too sweet, and it is much prettier in person than in the photo.

Their mango pie is probably good, it's hard to mess a basic fruit pie.

R50, Mango cake looks like a version of the delicious fresh strawberry cake sold in Los Angeles' China Town.

Originally a French desert similar to angel cake with vanilla pudding mixed with whipped cream and fresh fruit layers and topping. Far less sweet than typical American deserts.

Mango cake recipe using a sponge cake base with cream cheese filling (instead of vanilla pudding.)

Jollibee Foods Corp also owns Chowking, a "Chinese-influenced" fast food chain that has expanded globally. Though it's marketed as a Chinese restaurant, many of its dishes are straight up Filipino: pancit, lumpia, fried chicken, asado siopao, banggus, tocino, longanisa, etc.

Jesus Christ, R48-that was horrible. Nothing inspires me to crave fast food more than tragedy. Fucking marketers, But yay for chicken joy!

Thanks for the lecture, r30, but I lived in the Philippines for two years, traveled all around, and know whereof I speak. Bully for you if you like it. I’ve choked down enough to last me a lifetime.

I prefer Thai food and Thai boys. Both are hot!

You drive by the Jollibee Brunei often?

[quote]Why can't we keep them from opening this dreadful restaurant here in the U.S.?

Ooh, get a load of Franklin Pangborn, geerls!

Are Filipinos considered clean or dirty like Indians?

^ Thinner than Americans.

The art direction is good. Looks like Pop Art.

The one here in Seattle is usually jammed, with long lines. However, I once hit it at the right time where I didn't have to take too long for a takeout order. Unfortunately, they screwed up my order so that when I got home I realized that they had given me the spaghetti instead of the seafood noodles. It was edible, but not great. An acquaintance who is half-filipino told me that it's more about nostalgia, than delicious grub.

Filipinos are China's Mexicans, right?

Whenever my Filipino cousins visit from Vancouver or Missouri, we always take them to the Jollibee in Panorama City (CA) as they miss this junk food from back home. Jollibees has been around since the 1970s, so they grew up on this stuff.

I've had their food twice - I can't believe how nasty it was. I thought the first time was a fluke - but no, it's weird and just not appetizing.

Really disappointed.

R65, How is the mango-peach desert? That's the most appealing menu item IMHO. Then again I don't like fish sauce on my food.

it sounds like a place for eldergays, they call everything 'Yum!'

I would go there from time to time with my Filipino ex. It's trashy unhealthy third world food but it was fun once in a while. Wasn't a big fan of the ice cream and mung bean desert though.

[R65] Panorama City...oof. I was in a Mexican clothing store there that had super sexy/trashy ensembles for ladies.

Their breakfasts seem strange -- just a weird-looking egg and some meat and rice. Don't they believe in breakfast sandwiches?

Here's a recipe for Filipino spaghetti. It sounds and looks nasty, but at the same time I'll bet I would have loved this as a kid. Serious Eats recommends Nathan's or another premium brand for the hot dogs.

Apparently there are myriad ways to make this, each with its staunch defenders, and the blogger states up front that she won't tolerate nasty comments about the recipe not including banana ketchup.

Another recipe from a Filipino foodie who hates the traditional version. His mother learned to cook Italian while his military dad was stationed in Italy, and this is a sort of compromise between Italian and Filipino.

R71, they have Breakfast Yumburgers and Bacon & Egg Pancake sandwiches in some locations. Most Filipinos, however, eat rice with everything, so Jollibee serves beef tapa, corned beef, tocino, or longanisa with egg and garlic rice.

While Jollibee sells crispylicious, juicylicious Chickenjoy with a Skyping father/husband announcing his imminent cancer death from afar (probably Dubai, where he’s being held in indentured servitude), McDonalds used to sell burgers with dementia.

In a nutshell, Gramps thinks Karen is Gina, her sister. Karen gets pissy because it’s always “Gina, Gina, Gina.” Where is Gina? Not spending her night at McDonalds with this old fool, that’s for sure. Then....he cuts his burger in half and says he’s saving it for his favorite granddaughter, Karen.

Karen feels like shit, and so should you.

Fat Whore Karen is still a stah!

Jollibee's mawkish Valentine's Day campaign, worthy of a [italic]teleserye[/italic] (the Filipino version of a telenovela).

Funny that "tocino," which means bacon in Spanish, is the name for a different pork product in the Philippines. What do they call bacon?

r17 That guy is HOT.

Well, gravy for 20¢ and ride for 30¢... Brunei, here I come!

This Jollibee commercial toys with my emotions.

She sure is, R76. Meanwhile, Gina is [italic]still[/italic] singing I’ve Never Been to Me at every family gathering and [italic]still[/italic] trying to convince anyone who’ll listen that her star is on the rise.

Tsk, tsk.

It's strange that menu is missing the 2 best things: pancit palabok and halo halo.

R83 ^^^ I think OP's posted menu is for Brunei restaurants only. I found those dishes listed on the company HQ website.

The Jollibee in Tukwila WA serves halo halo, and I'm still recovering from the trauma!

So basically Filipinos eat like goats, anything and everything?

Is that the gist of this thread?

If Filipino food is so good, why is Jollibee so popular?

If you go to a Filipino potluck, bring containers and foil. Part of the ritual is dividing up all the food.

Do they serve those purple sponge things for dessert?

R89, That's puto (steamed rice cakes). The purple ones are made with ube (purple yam). They don't serve those at Jollibee.

I don't usually eat puto for dessert, since the taste is bland, but as accompaniments to savory stews like dinuguan, kare kare, caldereta, or menudo.