Manila Food Guide: 10 Filipino Dishes You Have to Try (Beyond Jollibee)

Filipino food doesn't get the global attention Thai or Vietnamese cuisine does, and that's a mistake. The flavours are bolder, the comfort is deeper, the fusion roots run from Spain to Malaysia to America to China. Here are 10 dishes that explain Manila — eat all of them and you've eaten the city.

1. Adobo (the national dish)

Chicken or pork simmered in soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, and bay leaves until the meat falls off the bone. Every Filipino household has a version their grandmother made. Order it at a turo-turo (point-and-eat) cafeteria for ~120 pesos and you've had real adobo. The vinegar tang separates it from anything else in Asia.

2. Sisig (Anthony Bourdain's favourite)

Pig's face (cheeks, ears, snout) chopped fine, sizzled on a cast-iron plate with onions, chilli, and calamansi. The original version comes from Pampanga. In Manila, head to Mercato Centrale or the Aristocrat in Malate. Best ordered with a cold San Miguel beer at 11pm.

3. Lechon (whole roast pig)

The Filipino centerpiece. Crispy skin, juicy fat, meat that's been slow-roasted over coals for 6+ hours. Cebu lechon is the gold standard, but Manila has solid spots — La Loma is a whole street of lechon stalls in Quezon City. Eat it on rice with vinegar dipping sauce.

4. Sinigang (sour soup)

Tamarind-based sour soup with pork, shrimp, or beef and vegetables (kangkong, radish, eggplant, okra). Order it at any Filipino sit-down restaurant — Manam in BGC does a famous version with three sourness levels. The tang cuts through Manila's heat better than Thai tom yum does.

5. Kare-kare (peanut oxtail)

Oxtail and vegetables stewed in a thick peanut sauce, served with bagoong (fermented shrimp paste) on the side. Sounds strange, tastes incredible. The peanut sauce is more savoury than sweet — closer to a Thai massaman than a satay. Try it at Abe in Greenbelt.

6. Pancit Palabok (noodles in shrimp sauce)

Rice noodles in an orange shrimp-based sauce, topped with crushed chicharron, hard-boiled egg, smoked fish flakes, and calamansi. It's lunch food, party food, and a hangover food in one bowl. The shrimp sauce is the trick — proper palabok takes hours.

7. Halo-halo (shaved ice with everything)

The Filipino dessert — shaved ice, evaporated milk, ube ice cream, jelly, sweet beans, jackfruit, leche flan, sometimes cornflakes, all in a tall glass. It's chaos in a cup and absolutely works. Razon's of Guagua and Chowking both serve solid versions across Manila.

8. Balut (the brave one)

A 17-day fertilised duck egg, eaten warm from the shell with salt and vinegar. Yes, you can see the duckling. No, it's not as terrible as the Internet makes it sound. Vendors sell them on the street at night in clay pots — 25 pesos each. Order one if you want a real Manila story to take home.

9. Crispy Pata (crispy pork knuckle)

Whole pork knuckle, deep-fried until the skin shatters. Served with a soy-vinegar dipping sauce. It's a sharing dish — order it for a table of four, beer included. Try Kabila Filipino Heritage Cuisine in Pasay.

10. Bibingka & Puto Bumbong (Christmas-season treats)

Bibingka is a rice flour cake baked in clay pots over coals, topped with butter and salted egg. Puto bumbong is sticky purple rice steamed in bamboo tubes. Both are Christmas / Simbang Gabi (Dawn Mass) classics — December only, eaten outside churches at 4am after mass.

Where to eat in Manila

Quick rules: turo-turo cafeterias for cheap, fast, real Filipino food (~150 pesos a meal). Sit-down restaurants in Makati / BGC / Greenbelt for upscale Filipino (Manam, Sentro, Abe). Mercato Centrale at BGC for night-market style on Friday/Saturday nights. La Loma in Quezon City for the lechon belt. Avoid the airport food court — same dishes, double price.