What Your Favorite Manila Restaurant Says About You

(SPOT.ph) Taste, in both senses of the word, is subjective. What we literally taste is an entirely unique and personal experience, while what we find tasteful depends entirely on what we’ve chosen to expose ourselves to in our short time on this crazy planet.

That said: food is something we all love in different ways and varying intensities—so it’s not often that a simple picture namedropping some of the Metro’s most famous restaurants strikes a chord so loudly in such a wildly diverse (and often overly-opinionated) crowd. However, that’s exactly what this Instagram post by @katefeasts and @yp.eats, simply titled “What Your Favorite Manila Restaurant Says About You,” manages to achieve.

The post, with a format borrowed from @thenextselleb, is an x-y graph (you still remember that from high school?) plotting out restaurants from all over the Metro on two axes—spectrums, if you will: expat/tourist versus local and true foodie versus LARP-y. (Just in case: that means Live Action Role Playing, or just straight up performative.)

No one is safe, with fine dining spots like Gallery By Chele and Seva sharing the stage with fast food chains like Jollibee and Mang Inasal and unapologetic one-offs like Bacolod Chicken House Express and ToriTori Kushiyaki Snackbar. There are newer faces like Pluck and Scratch, but also immovable institutions like Wai Ying, Fong Wei Wu, Milky Way. And notably, bang-smack in the center of this graph (perhaps controversially, if the comments are anything to go by) is Wildflour.

“Kapag mas di modern ang logo mas legit (lower left),“ observes one user, referring to the cross between local and true foodie—which indeed, does happen to contain the oldest restaurants on the graph. “This is Southie erasure,” says another, and they have a point, with no representation anywhere farther than Makati. These thoughts float in a sea of opinions praising and bashing the placements of the restaurants that made it to the graph, as well as demands to include worthy names that didn’t.

We’re not here to tell you whether or not these restaurants are good, or whether the ones featured belong where they’ve been placed. The answers to all that are in your own heart and tastebuds.But what we are going to say is, despite the borrowed template, this little graph unwittingly paints a clear picture of the many faces of the foodie in Metro Manila.

The expat/tourist, for example, often won’t stray very far from eats in BGC or Makati’s more fashionable neighborhoods, while the local will have no qualms eating at grittier neighborhood favorites or at the mall—as long as it’s good. The LARP-er’s favorites will always be ready for the ‘Gram, while a true foodie’s will vary—wildly—leaning more towards If You Know, You Know territory.

However, there’s definitely more to loving food, but there are definitely more faces to the Manila foodie, as well as more dichotomies that could make for interesting graphs in themselves. Here are just some of them:

“[I feel like] the logos are a critical part of this narrative,” comments another—and indeed, you’ll find that the font, color, and image quality on this graph already give you a clue of whether it tends towards LARP-y or true foodie. But perhaps more accurately, a restaurant’s logo is a huge clue about its price point. And let’s be real: price will always play a role in where we choose to eat—and sometimes, it affects how much we enjoy it.

There are some who’ll find most joy in the treat yo’ self philosophy of dining, and spending their hard-earned cash on a meal with the finer things in life, whether that’s ultra-fresh ingredients, extra-friendly service, or a good drink. But on the flip side, don’t some things just taste so much better with an extra glaze of bang for buck? There’s also a rush in finding something both delicious and wallet-friendly—as well as the benefit of being able to come back more regularly.

Sometimes, you look for a specific dish that just naturally comes with a bigger price tag—and sometimes, a banger will come along with a smaller one despite the odds (and this economy). Which gives you a bigger thrill?

If you’ve ever dined in a party of six (or god forbid, bigger), you’ll know this struggle: finding a restaurant that everyone will actually enjoy. It can be a matter of price, but often, you’ll find some resistance in the realm of cuisine and locale.

There are food lovers who’ll be down to go on an expedition to try authentic Maranao cuisine in Quiapo’s Muslim Quarter, and those who’d really just prefer if we stuck to a tried-and-tested, authentic Chinese restaurant with dim sum that slaps, thanks very much. Some will prefer a rich, classic tonkotsu ramen, and others will feel the urge to try a mapo tofu-inspired one as soon as they see it on the menu. Do you like your spaghetti with a classic Bolognese sauce, or do you embrace the Japanese abomination served on a sizzling plate?

Both ends of this spectrum are completely valid—it’s just a matter of how much your mileage may vary. How far does yours go?

When someone asks you what the best anything you’ve ever had is, your answer will often say a lot about how you think about food. Is the best pancit palabok you’ve ever had a homey family recipe handed down through the generations, or a diabolically pimped up stunner by a classically-trained chef? Is your idea of a death row last meal a technical marvel of a porterhouse steak slow-cooked for god-knows-how-long before being seared, or a whole kariton’s worth of kwek-kwek and fishballs with classic manong’s sauce?

Food can make an impression on the lips through maxed out cooking stats or just sheer coziness. And while the two aren’t mutually exclusive and it is completely possible to love both schools of thought—food as an art versus a hug—you’ll find that one will spark joy in you more often than the other.

The Metro Manila foodie has many extremely different faces, and there are many that are categorically impossible to plot on a graph. There are, for instance, those who’ll travel across cities for good food, and others who’d rather spend their time unearthing every gem on their own stomping grounds. There are planners who like to study reviews and the Michelin Guide like the Bible before visiting, and others who can simply point somewhere and say, “Hey, that looks good. Let’s try it.”

There are many ways to love food. But at the end of the day, as in a real relationship, you don’t just stop at finding out your love language. You figure out how to love better. 

The real goal of being a foodie is not to find out which box you fit into, but to truly appreciate what you put into your mouth and how it got there. Why is a dish made this way? Does everything on the plate have a place? Is everything cooked properly, and not just to your preference? Because news flash: there is a difference between what you like versus what’s actually cooked well, and “it’s good for me” isn’t always going to slice the salami.

But beyond the confounding battle between objective and subjective, we can probably all agree on this: a real food-lover knows that good food is good food, no matter how it looks, who made it, and where it comes from. The real “true foodie” is going to eat anywhere that piques their interest at least once, no matter where it sits on the graph in that viral post this article is about. 

Whether you’re a tourist or a local, tasting or performing, when you pick up the scent for a trail leading to something delicious, it’s worth following to simply taste it. Not to say you’ve been there, not to leave a review, but just to try it. All for the love of the game.

And that is the real joy of living in a big city with a food scene as vibrant and ever-shifting as the Metro’s: there’s always something new to experience and something low-key to discover, all from a growing variety of cuisines, faces, and price points.

Taste is subjective—but you do need to take a bite of everything to say you’ve got it.