jollibee

a few weeks back i was in the refreshingly rainy hamlet of seattle to rendezvous with my pinoy peeps and to soak in the city, as it were. and in between brief rays of sun (minutes at best), rain it did; and though we did spend some quality time outdoors, we did oft seek shelter indoors. besides the wet stuff that falls from the sky, seattle is different from denver in other ways. it is, for example, home to many, manyfilipinoexpats and their inevitable extended families. this was equally as refreshing to me as the 4 days of more or less continuous rain showers, because as i have said before, denver is sorely lacking filipinos . you may remember from my other posts that filipinos love the mall , so it should be no surprise that in south seattle, where thefilipinopopulation is most concentrated, there is a fabulouslyfilipinomall. i am not one to take much pride or joy in the filipino mall-loving tradition. maybe it is because i am but 50 percent pinoy (i don't care for boxing much

whisper the word jollibee (or post a picture on facebook) and everyfilipinofor miles around will text you an order for chicken to be brought back to canada (does that seem a bit like a stereotype? sorry. let's say, everyfilipinothat my partner knows for miles around). it is definitely a taste of home for a lot of folks and currently the tukwila store is the nearest jollibee to vancouver, bc. this is a popular fast food place in the philippines best known for fried chicken. and it is pretty good fried chicken, being crispy yet very moist on the inside. i wouldn't put it above seattle's own ezells but it is as good as churches or any of the other vancouver chains and a good deal better than most. you can order it with some interesting sides like palabok, a noodle dish with chicharon, pork, shrimp, boiled eggs and their version is very tasty. or try it with spaghetti. thefilipinoversion of spaghetti is much sweeter than the italian and traditionally has chopped up wieners in the sauce. not my personal favourite but popular at jollibee and their version is not too sweet. i know that seems odd but don't try to compare it to italian bolognese and it is quite tasty. other than that, their gravy is pretty decent, with onion and celery notes. they have burgers, a decent breakfast and more. personally, i wouldn't drive to seattle just for jollibee (my partner would) but when we are down there we definitely make the stop. also it is surrounded by a few otherfilipinoplaces like the grocery store seafood city which has amazing fresh fish and some harder to findfilipinoitems, a couple of bakeries and least two more fast food places. if you are filipino, you already know (sorry... stereotype again) and if you are not, you owe it to yourself to expand your cultural horizons!

 even anthony bourdain tried jollibee on his show "parts unknown" and loved everything about it. you can watch it here below. [jollibee segment starts at 0:40]  if you haven't seen "parts unknown by anthony bourdain" before, you're missing out. it's incredibly eye opening from a cultural perspective and he always talks about food. :) connected next door is afilipinobaker

myfilipinofriends at home were jealous.... i had heard about jollibee fromfilipinofriends and coworkers, so when we randomly stumbled across it while we were at the mall, we had to check it out.

the setup is very food court-ish, but the line moved pretty fast and we only had to wait a couple of minutes for the food to be served.

i had the 2 piece fried chicken combo with mashed potatoes and gravy and buttered corn.

the mashed potatoes and corn were fine, but the gravy was awesome. and the fried chicken was delicious. fresh, hot and crispy. i seriously debated going back for more, but opted to go next door to red ribbon bakery for dessert instead (the ube cake and coconut macaroons were excellent!)

if we're ever in the area again, we would definitely go back.

jollibee is a very popularfilipinofast food joint that has opened its first location in seattle. since now it's within driving range, m suggested we head down to the states for some shopping and dining.