Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Pants + Shit = Pancit

To be honest, I forgot I had even started this Blog. It wasn't until my Filipino in-laws decided to drop in and spend a week living with us that I remembered how much I hate Filipino food. To my amusement - and delight I might add - I actually had a reader comment who shared my disdain for Filipino cuisine and a special request: to talk about pancit.

Where to begin? Pancit refers to one of what seems like thousands of different noodle dishes. Some noodles are skinny. Some noodles are fat. They all taste like crap.

Go to any Filipino party, and you will likely see at least three iterations of this dish sitting right next to one another. I can all but promise you the noodles will be dry and there will be random pieces of overcooked Grade F- beef, imitation crab, and hard boiled egg littering the mess. Even Filipinos who supposedly love this dish usually squeeze lemon on it - either to kill off the bacteria (aka: noodle cooties) they know have accumulated or to give the dish some sort of flavor (albeit the flavor of a NYC taxicab air-freshener).

If you have to eat this stuff I recommend dousing it in some sort of gravy/sauce from a nearby dish - or making sure you have access to a large beverage (preferably an alcoholic/antiseptic one) to help you get this stuff to move down your esophagus.

Like lumpia, pancit is a great source of pride in many Filipino households. All claim that they make it better than anyone else and they will hound you until you have at least three helping of it. Some will even make outlandish claims about its medicinal qualities - which if you are comparing it to Ipecac syrup or stool softener - well then I guess I can't argue.

10 comments:

  1. What's funny is tonight my roommate's GF is making us dinner....and she's making Filipino food! Ugh. I hope you continue to update this blog. I was super ecstatic today when I saw the post about pan-shit. Your blog is hilarious! You should write about Adobo (what the hell is even adobo? lol soy sauce??) Oh and if you get the chance, you should check out Anthony Bourdain's show when he went to the Philippines. You can totally tell he also thinks Filipino sucks.

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  2. I mean FILIPINO FOOD! He also thinks Filipino food sucks!

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  3. I like your blog dude. Philippino food really sucks bad...
    Please i would like to see you write about how bad sinigang sucks in my opinion the worst food offender. How somebody can eat more than one spoon of this disgusting crap is beyond me.

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  4. I agree. I give all foods at least a couple tries. Everyone has to give beer a couple tries at least before it tastes good. Filipino food, never tastes good. Cheap, salty, preservative laden ingredients that they insist on buying are what make the stuff taste so terrible. Adobo... where the fk do you even begin? Could the meat be saltier, fattier? W.T.F.

    Honestly, the last time I sat in front of filipino food was at a breakfast table and didn't even care that I left the longanisa sausage sitting on my plate... mushed up - it looked like it wasn't even cooked through. I said "I'll keep it for the neighbor's dog" (which I hate as well). I got some pretty insulted looks - but I found it more insulting to serve uncooked mystery meat to a guest. Again I'm not a picky eater either.

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  5. Hmm. A lot of your entries seem to be filled with negative buzz words and expletives. I think this may not be a problem with food but with the people cooking the food you've had. I can understand how someone may not like a certain cuisine but explaining their disdain for it shouldn't contain all this negative and prejudicial language. Notice I didn't say racist. Or maybe your relationships with these women and their families were never very good and this is your way of giving them the one-fingered peace sign.

    Or wait...maybe the Filipino food you were served came from people who didn't know how to cook. That's always a possibility. I mean I have had terrible Filipino food. For instance, many Filipinos tend to put ground beef in lumpia, and so what happens is when you bite into it, the beef rolls out or lumpia is soggy because they made the mistake of not freezing the lumpia before it goes into the fryer.

    The thing is Filipino food, in general, really doesn't have a lot of bold flavors like curry in Indian food or strong scented fish sauces used in other Southeast Asian cuisines, which could turn people off. It's basically comfort food. With all the unique foods you've tasted like fermented eggs and certain animal parts, it's surprising that your reacting like this to pancit, adobo, and lumpia which don't consist of extreme ingredients. I think you were unfortunately attracted to Filipinos and Filipino restaurants that didn't cook Filipino cuisine the way it's supposed to taste.

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  6. I wish you'd update this blog more!

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  7. As an American of Filipino descent with a mom who loves to cook, it sounds like the people who cooked or served you lumpia and pancit don't know how to cook.

    Pancit should never be dry nor too greasy. It's a balance of noodles, meat and veggies resulting in contrasting, yet balanced, textures. Again, like lumpia, it's all in the way the meat and veggies are chopped and cooked. That requires patience and attention to detail. And, real pancit doesn't have imitation crab!

    I'm currently here in Manila, I must say, the food is very different from the Filipino food I'm used to. My mom's recipes are quite old and have been handed down from the previous generations, most of them are pre-world war II recipes. I am quite disappointed in "modern" Filipino food, at least the ones served in restaurants here. They're either too salty, greasy or too sweet or all of the above. I noticed people here get a little too happy with the oil or fat. And, people tend to overcook their veggies, thus zapping their nutritional value.

    I like a few Filipino dishes here and there but I think Thai, Singaporean, Malaysian cuisines are superior to Phil. cuisine. The complexities of flavors and nuances just blow me away. And Thai food, just wow! It really engages all your five senses. Having said that, Filipino food has its own merits. You just need to find someone who knows how to cook, one who is willing to put in the extra effort involved.

    Mia

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  8. Ohh my Fucki***g God. Where do I start? Apparently, I was looking for some blog like this to vent off and express my frustration with this food. I am not racist nor pregidous. I am just fed with this awful food smell that is killing me very day. I live next to few Philippinos here in California. I swear every time they turn on the stove, my stomach turns over. The smell is mostly atrocious of whatever they are cooking. I tried it too. It is awefulllll!! And especially NOT Healthy Whatsoever!!
    As to the Bulad (the dried fish) or whatever it’s called, I swear when I first smelled it from my apartment, I though we were undergoing a biological attack or a nuclear strike. How can a human being allow himself/herself to put such garbage on the stove??? Or at least for decency’s sake, don’t subject others to these awful odors. It smells like cooking rotten fermented human cadavers. You should be ashamed of your cuisine Philippinos.
    Lumpia? Are you freaking kidding me? That’s the worst and greasiest egg roll ever. Vietnamese, Chinese, Arabic egg rolls are way better in my opinion and more healthy.
    Wow…. Philipino food keeps radiologists working nicely. What a disaster to health.

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  9. Filipino food is the low budget of all asian food and the people are suppose to be asian but they dont act like they are.. I am Hmong and i live with filipinos. I can see the differences with chinese laos and thai thst theyre definitely asian. Filipinos are not fully asian. They dont have a tradition to follow. They just do what they like. Alot of the. Have very bad attitudes and i dont know why but theyre all almost the same when theyre all mad. Same mentality.

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  10. Filipino food is the low budget of all asian food and the people are suppose to be asian but they dont act like they are.. I am Hmong and i live with filipinos. I can see the differences with chinese laos and thai thst theyre definitely asian. Filipinos are not fully asian. They dont have a tradition to follow. They just do what they like. Alot of the. Have very bad attitudes and i dont know why but theyre all almost the same when theyre all mad. Same mentality.

    ReplyDelete