The Filipino cuisine is the traditional cuisine of the Philippines . It is a style of cooking that has evolved from an Austronesian base (shared with Malaysian and Indonesian cuisines). It has changed under the influence of Indian, Chinese , Spanish and American cuisines, in parallel with major waves of influences that have enriched the cultures of the archipelago. Exterior elements have been incorporated by substituting indigenous ingredients and adapting to local preferences.
The main food is rice. Meals can be frugal, consisting of rice and fried salted fish, but can also be more elaborate; paellas and cocidos , of Spanish origin, are prepared for special occasions. The most popular dishes include: grilled meats such as lechón, charcuterie such as longganisa , dishes in sauce such as adobo , kaldereta, mechado, puchero , afritada, kare – kare , pinakbet , hamonado , soups likesinigang, noodle dishes called pancit. The lumpia and torta are also common in the archipelago.
Main dishes
Adobo is one of the most popular Filipino dishes and is considered unofficially by many as the national dish. It usually consists of pork or chicken, sometimes both, stewed or braised in a sauce usually made from vinegar, cooking oil, garlic, bay leaf, peppercorns, and soy sauce. It can also be prepared “dry” by cooking out the liquid and concentrating the flavor. Bistek, also known as “Filipino beef steak,” consists of thinly sliced beef marinated in soy sauce and calamansi and then fried in a skillet that is typically served with onions.
Some well-known stews are kare-kare and dinuguan. In kare-kare, also known as “peanut stew”, oxtail or ox tripe is the main ingredient and is cooked with vegetables in a peanut-based preparation. It is typically served with bagoong (fermented shrimp paste). In dinuguan, pig’s blood, entrails, and meat are cooked with vinegar and seasoned with chili peppers, usually siling mahaba.
Paksiw refers to different vinegar-based stews that differ greatly from one another based on the type of meat used. Paksiw na isda uses fish and usually includes the addition of ginger, fish sauce, and maybe siling mahaba and vegetables. Paksiw na baboy is a paksiw using pork, usually pork hocks, and often sees the addition of sugar, banana blossoms, and water so that the meat is stewed in a sweet sauce. A similar Visayan dish called humba adds fermented black beans. Both dishes are probably related to pata tim which is of Chinese origin. Paksiw na lechon is made from lechon meat and features the addition of ground liver or liver spread. This adds flavor and thickens the sauce so that it starts to caramelize around the meat by the time dish is finished cooking. Although some versions of paksiw dishes are made using the same basic ingredients as adobo, they are prepared differently, with other ingredients added and the proportions of ingredients and water being different.
In crispy pata, pork knuckles (the pata) are marinated in garlic-flavored vinegar then deep fried until crisp and golden brown, with other parts of the pork leg prepared in the same way. Lechon manok is the Filipino take on rotisserie chicken. Available in many hole-in-the-wall stands or restaurant chains (e.g. Andok’s, Baliwag, Toto’s, Sr. Pedro’s, G.S. Pagtakhan’s), it is typically a specially seasoned chicken roasted over a charcoal flame served with “sarsa” or lechon sauce made from mashed pork liver, starch, sugar, and spices.
Mechado, kaldereta, and afritada are Spanish influenced tomato sauce-based dishes that are somewhat similar to one another. In these dishes meat is cooked in tomato sauce, minced garlic, and onions. Mechado gets its name from the pork fat that is inserted in a slab of beef making it look like a wick (mitsa) coming out of a beef “candle”. The larded meat is then cooked in a seasoned tomato sauce and later sliced and served with the sauce it was cooked in. Kaldereta can be beef but is also associated with goat. Chunks of meat are cooked in tomato sauce, minced garlic, chopped onions, peas, carrots, bell peppers and potatoes to make a stew with some recipes calling for the addition of soy sauce, fish sauce, vinegar, chilies, ground liver or some combination thereof. Afritada tends to be the name given to the dish when chicken and pork is used. Another similar dish said to originate from the Rizal area is waknatoy. Pork or beef sirloin is combined with potatoes and cut sausages and cooked in a tomato-based sauce sweetened with pickles. Puchero is derived from the Spanish cocido; it is a sweeter stew that has beef and banana or plantain slices simmered in tomato sauce.
Filipinos also eat tocino and longganisa. Tocino is a sweetened cured meat made with either chicken or pork and is marinated and cured for a number of days before being fried. Longganisa is a sweet or spicy sausage, typically made from pork though other meats can also be used, and are often colored red traditionally through the use of the anatto seed but also artificial food coloring.
Filipino soups tend to be very hearty and stew-like containing large chunks of meat and vegetables or noodles. They are usually intended to be filling and not meant to be a light preparatory introduction for the main course. They tend to be served with the rest of the meal and eaten with rice when they are not meals unto themselves. They are often referred to on local menus under the heading sabaw (broth). Sinigang is a popular dish in this category distinguished by its sourness that often vies with adobo for consideration as the national dish. It is typically made with either pork, beef, chicken or seafood and made sour with tamarind or other suitable souring ingredients. Some seafood variants for example can be made sour by the use of guava fruit or miso. Another dish is tinola. It has large chicken pieces and green papaya/sayote slices cooked with chili, spinach, and moringa leaves in a ginger-flavored broth. Nilagang baka is a beef stew made with cabbages and other vegetables. Binacol is a warm chicken soup cooked with coconut water and served with strips of coconut meat. La Paz batchoy is a noodle soup garnished with pork innards, crushed pork cracklings, chopped vegetables, and topped with a raw egg. Another dish with the same name uses misua, beef heart, kidneys and intestines, but does not contain eggs or vegetables. Mami is a noodle soup made from chicken, beef, pork, wonton dumplings, or intestines (called laman-loob). Ma Mon Luk was known for it. Another chicken noodle soup is sotanghon, consisting of cellophane noodles (also called sotanghon and from whence the name of the dish is derived), chicken, and sometimes mushrooms.
Noodle dishes are generally called pancit. Pancit recipes primarily consist of noodles, vegetables, and slices of meat or shrimp with variations often distinguished by the type of noodles used. Some pancit, such as mami and La Paz-styled batchoy, are noodle soups while the “dry” varieties are comparable to chow mein in preparation. Then there is spaghetti or ispageti in the local parlance that is a modified version of spaghetti bolognese. It is sometimes made with banana ketchup instead of tomato sauce, sweetened with sugar and topped with hot dog slices.
There are several rice porridges that are popular in the Philippines. One is arroz caldo which is a rice porridge cooked with chicken, ginger and sometimes saffron, garnished with spring onions (chives), toasted garlic, and coconut milk to make a type of gruel. Another variant is goto which is an arroz caldo made with ox tripe. There is also another much different rice porridge called champorado which is sweet and flavored with chocolate and often served at breakfast paired with tuyo or daing.
Another rice-based dish is arroz a la valenciana, a Spanish paella named after the Spanish region Valencia that has been incorporated into the local cuisine. Bringhe is a local rice dish with some similarities to paella but using glutinous rice, coconut milk, and turmeric. Kiampong a type of fried rice topped with pork pieces, chives and peanuts. It can be found in Chinese restaurants in Binondo and Manila. Camaron rebosado con jamon has been described as a classic dish in the Binondo district of Manila, the city’s Chinatown.
For vegetarians, there is dinengdeng, a dish consisting of moringa leaves (malunggay) and slices of bittermelon. There is also pinakbet, stewed vegetables heavily flavored with bagoong. A type of seafood salad known as kinilaw is made up of raw seafood such as fish or shrimp cooked only by steeping in local vinegar, sometimes with coconut milk, onions, spices and other local ingredients. It is comparable to the Peruvian ceviche.
Side dishes and complements
Itlog na pula (red eggs) are duck eggs that have been cured in brine or a mixture of clay-and-salt for a few weeks, making them salty. They are later hard boiled and dyed with red food coloring (hence the name) to distinguish them from chicken eggs before they are sold over the shelves. They are often served mixed in with diced tomatoes. Atchara is a side dish of pickled papaya strips similar to sauerkraut. It’s a frequent accompaniment to fried dishes like tapa or daing.
Nata de coco is a chewy, translucent, jelly-like food product produced by the fermentation of coconut water can be served with pandesal. Kesong puti is a soft white cheese made from carabao milk (although cow milk is also used in most commercial variants). Grated mature coconut (niyog), is normally served with sweet rice-based desserts.
Desserts
As the Philippines is a tropical country, it should come as no surprise that there are many treats made from rice and coconuts. One often seen dessert is bibingka, a hot rice cake optionally topped with a pat of butter, slices of kesong puti (white cheese), itlog na maalat (salted duck eggs), and sometimes grated coconut. There are also glutinous rice sweets called biko made with sugar, butter, and coconut milk. In addition, there is a dessert known as bitsu-bitsu, also known as a Pinoy donut, made with fried rice flour which is then coated with Muscovado sugar syrup. There is also Karioka, made from glutinous rice flour, coconut, and coconut milk, fried and skewered and slathered with a brown sugar glaze. Another brown rice cake is kutsinta.
Puto is another well-known example of sweet steamed rice cakes prepared in many different sizes and colors. Sapin-sapin (sapin means layer) are three-layered, tri-colored sweets made with rice flour, purple yam, and coconut milk characterized by its gelatinous appearance. Palitaw are rice patties that are covered with sesame seeds, sugar, and coconut; pisti-pisti which are cassava patties coated with cheese or coconut; and tibok-tibok is based on carabao milk as a de leche (similar to maja blanca). As a snack, binatog is created with corn kernels with shredded coconut. Packaged snacks wrapped in banana or palm leaves then steamed, suman are made from sticky rice. For cold desserts there is halo-halo which can be described as a dessert made with shaved ice, milk, and sugar with additional ingredients like coconut, halaya (mashed purple yam), “leche flan” or caramel custard, plantains, jackfruit, red beans, tapioca and pinipig being typical.
Other similar treats made with shaved ice include saba con yelo which is shaved ice served with milk and minatamis na saging (ripe plantains chopped and caramelized with brown sugar); mais con yelo which is shaved ice served with steamed corn kernels, sugar, and milk; and buko pandan sweetened grated strips of coconut with gulaman, milk, and the juice or extract from pandan leaves. Sorbetes (ice cream) is popular, as well, with some local versions utilizing coconut milk instead of cow milk. Ice candy, are popular frozen snacks usually made from fruit juice, chocolate or local ingredients such as mung beans and ube. It can be any kind of flavor depending on the maker; chocolate and buko (coconut) flavored ice candy are two of the most popular. Another dessert, often served during Christmas and New Year’s Eve, is mango float, a dessert composed of Graham cracker, mangoes, cream and milk, and created by layering them together in a dish and then refrigerating or blast chilling.
Street food and other snacks
Aside from pastries and desserts, there are heartier snacks for merienda that can also serve as either an appetizer or side dish for a meal. Siomai is the local version of Chinese shaomai. Lumpia are spring rolls that can be either fresh or fried. Fresh lumpia (lumpiang sariwa) is usually made for fiestas or special occasions as it can be labor-intensive to prepare, while one version of fried lumpia (lumpiang prito), lumpiang shanghai is usually filled with ground pork and a combination of vegetables, and served with a sweet and sour dipping sauce. Other variations are filled with minced pork and shrimp and accompanied by a vinegar-based dipping sauce. Lumpia has been commercialized in frozen food form.
There’s a distinct range of street foods available in the Philippines. Some of these are skewered on sticks in the manner of a kebab. One such example is banana-cue which is a whole banana or plantain skewered on a short thin bamboo stick, rolled in brown sugar, and pan-fried. Kamote-cue is a peeled sweet potato skewered on a stick, covered in brown sugar and then pan-fried. Fish balls or squid balls are also pan-fried, then skewered on bamboo sticks and given to the customer, who then has a choice of dipping in a sweet or savory sauce. These are commonly sold frozen in markets and peddled by street vendors.
Turon, a kind of lumpia consisting of an eggroll or phyllo wrapper commonly filled with sliced plantain and occasionally jackfruit, is fried and sprinkled with sugar.
Taho is a warm treat made of soft beancurd which is the taho itself, dark caramel syrup called arnibal, and tapioca pearls. It is often sold in neighborhoods by street vendors who yell out “taho” in a manner comparative to vendors in the stands at sporting events yelling out “hotdogs” or “peanuts”. Sometimes, taho is served chilled, and flavors have recently been added, such as chocolate or strawberry. Taho is derived from the original Chinese snack food known as douhua.
There is also iskrambol (from the English “to scramble”), a kind of iced-based treat similar to a sorbet. The shaved ice is combined with various flavorings and usually topped with chocolate syrup. It is eaten by “scrambling” the contents or mixing them, then drinking with a large straw. It was later modified into ice scramble, or simply scramble, but with added skim milk, chocolate or strawberry syrup, and a choice of toppings such as marshmallows, chocolate or candy sprinkles, rice crispies, or tapioca pearls.
Street food featuring eggs include kwek-kwek which are hard-boiled quail eggs dipped in orange-dyed batter and then deep fried similar to tempura. Tokneneng is a larger version of kwek-kwek using chicken or duck eggs. Another Filipino egg snack is balut, essentially a boiled pre-hatched poultry egg, usually duck or chicken. These fertilized eggs are allowed to develop until the embryo reaches a pre-determined size and are then boiled. There is also another egg item called penoy, which is basically hard-boiled unfertilized duck eggs that does not contain embryo. Like taho, balut is advertised by street hawkers calling out their product.
Okoy, also spelled as ukoy, is another batter-covered, deep-fried street food in the Philippines. Along with the batter, it normally includes bean sprouts, shredded pumpkin and very small shrimps, shells and all. It is commonly dipped in a combination of vinegar and chilli.
Among other street food are already mentioned pulutan like isaw, seasoned hog or chicken intestines skewered onto a stick and grilled; betamax, roasted dried chicken blood cut into and served as small cubes, from which it received its name due to its crude resemblance to a Betamax tape; Adidas, grilled chicken feet named after the popular shoe brand; and proven, the proventriculus of a chicken coated in cornstarch and deep-fried. Fries made from sweet potatoes have also been dubbed “Pinoy fries”.
Exotic dishes
Some exotic dishes in the Filipino diet are camaro, which are field crickets cooked in soy sauce, salt, and vinegar, and is popular in Pampanga; papaitan, which is a stew made of goat or beef innards flavored with bile that gives it its characteristic bitter (pait) taste; Soup No. 5 (Also spelled as “Soup #5”) which is a soup made out of bull’s testes, and can be found in restaurants in Ongpin St., Binondo, Manila; and pinikpikan na manok that involves having a chicken beaten to death to tenderize the meat and to infuse it with blood. It is then burned in fire to remove its feathers then boiled with salt and itag (salt/smoke cured pork). The act of beating the chicken in preparation of the dish violates the Philippine Animal Welfare Act of 1998.
Cooking methods
The Filipino/Tagalog words for popular cooking methods and terms are listed below:
“Adobo/Inadobo” − cooked in vinegar, oil, garlic and soy sauce.
“Babad/Binabad/Ibinabad” − to marinate.
“Banli/Binanlian/Pabanli” − to blanch.
“Bagoong/Binagoongan/ – sa Bagoong” − cooked with fermented fish/shrimp paste bagoong.
“Binalot” – literally “wrapped.” This generally refers to dishes wrapped in banana leaves, pandan leaves, or even aluminum foil. The wrapper is generally inedible (in contrast to lumpia — see below).
“Buro/Binuro” − fermented.
“Daing/Dinaing/Padaing” − marinated with garlic, vinegar, and black peppers. Sometimes dried and usually fried before eating.
“Guinataan/sa Gata” − cooked with coconut milk.
“Guisa/Guisado/Ginisa” or “Gisado” − sautéed with garlic, onions or tomatoes.
“Halabos/Hinalabos” – mostly for shellfish. Steamed in their own juices and sometimes carbonated soda.
“Hilaw/Sariwa” – unripe (for fruits and vegetables), raw (for meats). Also used for uncooked food in general (as in lumpiang sariwa).
“Hinurno” – baked in an oven or roasted.
“Ihaw/Inihaw” − grilled over coals.
“Kinilaw” or “Kilawin” − fish or seafood marinated in vinegar or calamansi juice along with garlic, onions, ginger, tomato, peppers.
“Lechon/Litson/Nilechon” − roasted on a spit.
“Lumpia” – savory food wrapped with an edible wrapper.
“Minatamis/Minatamisan” − sweetened.
“Nilaga/Laga/Palaga” − boiled/braised.
“Nilasing” − cooked with an alcoholic beverage like wine or beer.
“Pinakbet” − to cook with vegetables usually with sitaw (yardlong beans), calabaza, talong (eggplant), and ampalaya (bitter melon) among others and bagoong.
“Paksiw/Pinaksiw” − cooked in vinegar.
“Pangat/Pinangat” − boiled in salted water with fruit such as tomatoes or ripe mangoes.
“Palaman/Pinalaman/Pinalamanan” − “filled” as in siopao, though “palaman” also refers to the filling in a sandwich.
“Pinakuluan” – boiled.
“Prito/Pinirito” − fried or deep fried. From the Spanish frito.
“Relleno/Relyeno” – stuffed.
“Sarza/Sarciado” – cooked with a thick sauce.
“Sinangag” – garlic fried rice.
“Sigang/Sinigang” − boiled in a sour broth usually with a tamarind base. Other common souring agents include guava, raw mangoes, calamansi also known as calamondin.
“Tapa/Tinapa” – dried and smoked. Tapa refers to meat treated in this manner, mostly marinated and then dried and fried afterwards. Tinapa meanwhile is almost exclusively associated with smoked fish.
“Tosta/Tinosta/Tostado” – toasted.
“Torta/Tinorta/Patorta” – to cook with eggs in the manner of an omelette.
“Turon/Turrones” – wrapped with an edible wrapper; dessert counterpart of lumpia.
Native ingredients
Filipino cuisine has a variety of native ingredients used. The biota that developed yielded a particular landscape and in turn gave the place local ingredients that enhanced flavors to the dishes. Kalamansi is the more known of those ingredients, it is a fruit that belongs to the genus citrus. It is mostly used due to the sourness it gives to a dish. Another is the Tabon-tabon, a tropical fruit which were used by pre-colonial Filipinos as anti-bacterial ingredient especially in Kinilaw dishes. The country also cultivates different type of nuts and one of them is the Pili nut, which the Philippines is the only known edible exporter of. It is usually made as a merienda or is incorporated in other desserts to enhance the flavor due to the milky texture it gives off as it melts in the mouth.
Tultul, a type of rock salt is another ingredient made only in Guimaras whom most use it to sprinkle on cooked rice to serve as a viand. The salt is an assortment of reeds, twigs and small pieces of bamboo carried to the shore by the sea tide where they have been soaked in seawater for some time and is then burned in large quantities while continually being doused with salt water on a daily basis. The ashes then is strained continuously by kaings and are then cooked in pans.
In Visayas, another souring agent in dishes in the form of Batuan (Garcinia binucao) is used. It is a fruit that is greenish, yellowish, somewhat rounded, and four centimeters or more in diameter. They have a firm outer covering and contain a very acid pulp and several seeds.
Beverages
Chilled drinks and shakes
Chilled drinks are popular due to the tropical climate. Stands selling cold fruit drinks and fruit shakes are common in many of the city areas, where some are based on green mandarin orange (dalandan or dalanghita), pomelo (suha), pineapple (pinya), banana (saging), and soursop (guyabano). The shakes usually contain crushed ice, evaporated or condensed milk, and fruits like the perennially popular mango. Other fruits are avocado, cantaloupe, durian, papaya, strawberry and watermelon, to name a few.
Other chilled drinks include sago’t gulaman, a flavored ice drink of pre-Hispanic Malay origin (Malay: gula melaka) with sago and agar gelatin with banana extract sometimes added to the accompanying syrup; fresh buko or coconut juice, the water or juice straight out of a young coconut via an inserted straw, a less fresh variation of which is from bottled coconut juice, scraped coconut flesh, sugar, and water; and kalamansi juice, the juice of kalamansi or Philippine limes usually sweetened with honey, syrup or sugar.
Brewed beverages
The Philippines is a predominantly coffee-drinking nation. One of the most popular variants of coffee coming from the mountains of Batangas is known as kapeng barako. Another well-known variant of coffee is the civet coffee. It is called kape motit in the Cordilleras, kape alamid in Tagalog region, and kape musang in Mindanao. The Kalinga coffee known for its organic production is also rapidly gaining popularity. Highlands coffee, or Benguet coffee, is a blend of Robusta and Excelsa beans.
Even before the establishment of coffeehouses in the Philippines, coffee has been part of the Filipino meal. Carinderias would often serve them along with meals. The opening of Starbucks in 1997 paved the way for other coffee shops.
Tea consumption in the Philippines is driven primarily by growing health consciousness amongst middle- to high-income consumers. Tea is commonly prepared using Philippine wild tea or tea tree. There are several known variations of tea using different additives. Pandan iced tea is one of these, made with pandan leaves and lemongrass (locally known as tanglad). Salabat, sometimes called ginger tea, is brewed from ginger root and usually served during the cold months, and when illnesses such as flu or sore throat strikes.
The late 2010s saw the opening of teahouses in major cities, and with a glass of milk tea being more affordable than the usual cold designer coffee, it paved the way into making tea a well-known food trend. Among the top players in the Philippine teahouse scene are ShareTea, Happy Lemon, Chatime, Serenitea and Moonleaf Tea Shop.
Tsokolate is the Filipino take on hot chocolate. It is traditionally made with tablea, which are pure cacao beans that are dried, roasted, ground and then formed into tablets.
Alcoholic beverages
There are a wide variety of alcoholic drinks in the Philippines manufactured by local breweries and distilleries.
Beer or serbesa (from the Spanish “cerveza”) is the most preferred alcoholic drink in the Philippines. San Miguel Pale Pilsen is the most popular and most widely known brand, with Beer na Beer coming in a close second. San Mig Light is preferred mostly by yuppies and young drinkers. Gold Eagle Beer is more common in the rural areas of the Philippines. Colt 45 and Red Horse Beer, with their higher alcohol content, are brands favored by hard drinkers. Other beer labels include Lone Star, Lone Star Light, Lone Star Ultra, Carlsberg, Coors Light, San Miguel Superdry, San Mig Strong Ice, and just recently, Manila Beer. Several bars in the urban areas also serve international brands.
Rum is often associated with Tanduay.
Several gins, both local varieties like Ginebra San Miguel (as well as GSM Blue and GSM Premium Gin) and imported brands like Gilbey’s, are commonly found. Some people refer to gin by the shape of the bottle: bilog for a circular bottle and kwatro kantos (literally meaning four corners) for a square or rectangular bottle. Gin is sometimes combined with other ingredients to come up with variations.
Tuba (toddy) is a type of hard liquor made from fresh drippings extracted from a cut young stem of palm. The cutting of the palm stem usually done early in the morning by a mananguete, a person who climbs palm trees and extracts the tuba to supply to customers later in the day. The morning’s accumulated palm juice or drippings are then harvested by noon, and brought to buyers then prepared for consumption. Sometimes this is done twice a day so that there are two harvests of tuba occurring first at noon-time and then in the late-afternoon. Normally, tuba has to be consumed right after the mananguete brings it over, or it becomes too sour to be consumed as a drink. Any remaining unconsumed tuba is then often stored in jars to ferment for several days and become palm vinegar. Tuba can be distilled to produce lambanog (arrack), a neutral liquor often noted for its relatively high alcohol content.
Lambanog is an alcoholic beverage commonly described as coconut wine or coconut vodka. The drink is distilled from the sap of the unopened coconut flower, and is known for its potency and high alcohol content (80 and 90 proof). Most of the Lambanog distilleries are in the Quezon province of Luzon, Philippines. Constant efforts at standardizing lambanog production has led to its better quality. Presently, lambanog is being exported to other countries and continues to win foreign customers over due to its natural ingredients as well as its potency.
Tapuy is a traditional Philippine alcoholic drink made from fermented glutinous rice. It is a clear wine of luxurious alcoholic taste, moderate sweetness and lingering finish. Its average alcohol content is 14% or 28 proof, and it does not contain any preservatives or sugar. To increase the awareness of tapuy, the Philippine Rice Research Institute has created a cookbook containing recipes and cocktails from famous Filipino chefs and bartenders, featuring tapuy as one of the ingredients.
Eating methods
During the Spanish occupation, which yielded Western influences, Filipinos ate with the paired utensils of spoon and fork. The knife was not used as in other countries, because Spain prohibited them to have knives. Filipinos use the side of the spoon, to “cut” the food.
Nowadays, the use of hands during eating, known as “kamayan” (using the washed left hand for picking the centralized food and the right hand for bringing food to the mouth), has become a trend. Kamayan generally means “eating with your hands”, which was how Filipinos ate before the colonial era. It is further becoming more popular due to the incorporation of the “boodle fight” concept, a style of dining popularized by the Philippine Army, which utilizes banana leaves spread out on the table as the main serving platter, upon which is laid out portions of rice and a variety of Filipino viand for friendly, filial or communal feasting. The use of spoons and forks, however, is still the norm.
Source from Wikipedia