"...diced pork, end gut stewed in vinegar & pork blood..."

[Amerigo Vespucci]

That's the description for "Dinuguan."

"...diced beef heart, ears in tomato sauce..." ("Bopis")

"...diced grilled pork ears, liver in special sauce w/onions, jalapenos..." ("Sizzling Sisig 1")

Grabbed the take-out menu for a local Filipino restaurant with an eye toward doing a Website for them.

I'm from more of a spaghetti & meatballs kind of background, but it's always good to broaden one's horizons, ya know?

I went to Google photos and found "Dinuguan"...



...and "Bopis"...



...and "Sizzling Sisig"...



So it will be interesting to see what kind of visual appeal this place's food has.

:toast:

[AsahinaKimi]

1. You should try "Balut"

Also from the Philippines
I will let you Google the photos ...

[Chan790]

2. Thank you for not posting the balut photos. n/m

[Amerigo Vespucci]

5. You can thank me for not posting them too

I knew what it was (see below) but Google has a pretty nasty selection of balut photos, I must say.

[Odin2005]

3. OMG!

I almost hurled my late-night snack...

[Amerigo Vespucci]

4. My dad used to work at the San Francisco airport...

...and he used to tell about some of the workers there enjoying "Balut" snacks and the crunchy noises they made.

No thanks.

:scared:

[ipfilter]

13. I just googled balut

and threw up in my mouth. Yuk. I could think of a thousand different dishes to cook and that isn't one of them.

[jmowreader]

21. I really have to know:

Exactly what 300-proof liquor do they have in the Philippines that drove the inventor of balut to think incubating a fertilized duck egg for 18 days, hard-boiling it then eating the result was a good idea?

You know what they say about ugly tattoos received while drunk: well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I'm sorry, but balut is one of those things that you KNOW is a bad fucking idea no matter how stewed you are.

[petronius]

6. Considering the ingredients they were willing to list, that "special sauce"

really scares me... :scared:

Actually, the latter two dishes sound appealing, but gut, blood, and vinegar doesn't push my buttons...

[Amerigo Vespucci]

7. This is the point where I'd normally make a joke about...

...how I saw Gut, Blood & Vinegar open for Emerson, Lake & Palmer at Winterland back in the 70s.

But I decided to exercise restraint.

:rofl:

[nemo137]

8. Bopis is pretty good.

We had a friend who used to bring it to potlucks, or at least some version of it. If it's your first time there, though, just try something in adobo or maybe some of that stew with tamarind (I forget what it's called).

[grace0418]

9. Dinuguan is often on the table at my in-laws' house. It's not my cup of tea

but I try to be polite. I do love my mother-in-law's pancit, and lumpia, and kare kare, and adobo. She also makes these incredible dessert eggrolls filled with banana and caramelized sugar. I don't know what they are called but I lose control when she makes them.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

10. I used to help a lady from my former church...

...who was from the Philippines (a blind schoolteacher...after church on Sundays I'd go to her house and help her prepare her weekly lessons in Braille)...

...anyway, her dad was always there on Sundays to prepare meals for her and her daughter. The one thing I remember is garlic...lots and lots and lots of garlic, and I'm Italian, so if I say "a lot of garlic" I mean a LOT of garlic...and at least half the time it smelled like he cooked it just to the point of burning it.

...and there would be all kinds of strange things, no idea what they were, sausages and stuff that had God knows what for filling.

The menu for the restaurant I'm going to approach has some unexpected stuff mixed in, too, like mac & cheese and "lasagna, Filipino style." No idea what that is. Maybe I'll find out.

Right now, people are holding onto their money very tightly. Because this place offers catering, they would receive an enormous benefit by promoting that and making themselves visible / available via a site.

But the toughest thing in life is to tell someone who is afraid "don't be afraid." Right now, people are afraid to spend, even if it means spending money to attract more customers that they really need. Sometimes I just have to thank people for their time and walk away because the fear runs too deep.

[grace0418]

11. They definitely use some ingredients that may seem strange to Westerners. But her dad

may also have just been a bad cook. I don't love everything my m-i-l makes but she is a very good cook. I realized that over the years as we visited various other family members. Her versions of the standard Filipino dishes are far superior to any of my husband's other relatives. And, oddly enough, my f-i-l makes the best Thanksgiving turkey and stuffing I have ever tasted. I have no idea what he does but it's fantastic. All the other standard T-day fixins' are either missing or terrible but the turkey is great. Over the years I've started bringing more and more of the side dishes I feel are necessary for a great Thanksgiving meal.

But anyway, yeah, I know what you mean. I'm working with a client who wants to fit a HUUUUUUGE amount of copy and 4 contest entry forms on one door hanger-type flyer because they don't want to spend the money necessary to promote this event properly. Then they tell me it looks "copy heavy". Uh, yeah, maybe because it *IS* copy heavy, and I can't magically make that go away.

It's hard to make people understand the whole "spend money to make money" thing sometimes.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

14. I had a client ask me about door hangers once...

...I told him "people get angry about the fact that you hung something on their door, and they throw it away."

It's true, I do it 100% of the time...pizza parlors, whatever, straight into the trash.

[grace0418]

16. Apparently it works for this company because they've gotten good results. But I'm with you,

I throw that crap away immediately.

[GoCubsGo]

17. Not that strange to some of us...

Pork entrails and pork blood are the main ingredients in the various blood sausages out there, like the Polish "kiszka." I was raised on the stuff. Wish I could find it here. I often crave it, and I generally don't eat much meat.

[grace0418]

20. I should say "your average white bread American." Anyone raised with the ethnic foods

of their ancestors is familiar with "weird" ingredients. My grandmother was a Greek immigrant so I've seen my share of some entrails and innards. But I grew up in the suburbs and it seemed like an awful lot of kids my age knew nothing beyond mac & cheese, hamburger helper, and shit made with cream of mushroom soup.

[namahage]

18. You mean turon?

AKA banana lumpia:

[grace0418]

19. YES! TURON! Holy mother of god those are delicious when they are fresh.

The next day, meh. But fresh and crispy they are worth the monster workout that must follow them. :)

[KamaAina]

12. Ah yes, "chocolate meat".

Back in Hawai'i, some coworkers gave me some dinuguan one lunchtime.

I promptly proceeded to microwave it... :scared:

[grace0418]

15. Yeah, the first time I was served it, they all giggled when they called it "chocolate meat"

which of course was a dead giveaway.