It’s a fact — Filipinos who live abroad miss Pinoy food. And when they can’t find restaurants that serve decent Pinoy food, they scour the web for recipes and cook all the dishes that they miss. Dishes that remind them of home. Because it eases the homesickness.
And it doesn’t seem to matter whether these overseas Filipinos have been living abroad for a year or ten years. The craving remains. My brother-in-law and his family who have been residents of Chicago since the 1980s came home for a vacation last month and all they wanted to eat was Filipino food. It was their craving that led us to Mr. Moo’s. And when we were in Batangas for a day, guess what they wanted to eat? Pinakbet, crispy pata and grilled tilapia.
Same story with the members of the all-Filipino band in Royal Caribbean’s Legend of the Seas. Between the first and second cruises, we spent half the day in Singapore with the entertainers and where did they want to go? Lucky Plaza which is practically a Filipino turf — Pinoy food in the food court, Filipino goods — including peanuts and chicharon — in the shops, lots of establishments offering “padala” (send home) services… And when we had lunch, what do you think they ordered? While my friend Osang and I feasted on roast duck, the Las Vegas-based Filipino band members had daing na bangus and sinigang.
It’s the “tulingan and tawilis” from Batangas that I miss most and
anything cooked in freshly grated coconut milk.I haven’t eaten
kesong puti for a long,long time.
Also, I can eat pili nuts all day!!
I can only imagine how you feel. Canned coconut milk is getting better in quality but tawilis — real tawilis — well, you really have to go to Batangas for that.
Nowadays, more Filipino food/goodies are available from the Filipino stores here in Qatar than the first time I came here almost six years ago – except PORK or food with pork ingredient! Until now, pork is still banned here unlike in Dubai and Bahrain where pork can be purchased from supermarkets. I really feast on pork when I go home. I know it’s not healthy – but without the fats – I think it’s not that bad!
No dinuguan in Qatar?
No Dinuguan
My dad (based in Kuwait)cooks dinuguang manok using chicken blood but I don’t know where to get chicken blood here. Usually you’ll have to request them from the shops that sells live chicken. We can cook almost any Filipino dish but without pork.
bonjour! yeah true!!! we are all craving of filipino foods. we spent 4 weeks vacation in philippines and i never gets tired of eating kare kare
sarap kasi eh that’s what i am looking for laging request everytime im home! now, back in paris kaka miss 
But all the ingredients for cooking kare-kare (except, perhaps, for puso ng saging) you can buy there. The French aren’t squeamish with internal organs at all.
Hi Miss Connie! I’m here in Saudi for almost two years now and totoo talaga that the craving for Filipino food is something that we can’t deny. Actually, the reason I stumbled upon your food blog is because I was searching for pinoy recipes. (I’ve been lurking here for more than a year now but this is the first time I’ll post a comment). I’ve tried most of your recipes, the ones that require pork, i make do with chicken or beef. Ayun! May housemates are always impressed with my cooking and they say hindi daw sila nabobore sa luto ko (coz i try not to repeat the same dish in a month or two). Blessing talaga itong food blog na ito! Now, I’m just a few weeks away for my vacation sa Pinas and all I can think about is the Pinoy foods that I’ll eat there (mostly pork-based dishes like sinigang and barbeque)… and all the pinoy food stuff that I’ll bring back here. But this time, I’ll surprise my family by cooking all the recipes I learned here. Thanks Ms. Connie!