When you stay in the Philippines particularly Manila for a few days or years, you need to eat these ten hottest things for bragging rights:

1. Balut. That little duck egg deserves praise, instead of derision. Its better eating it with the chick rather than digging a place in the earth and burying it and let it rot, like what the Chinese do with their duck eggs. Foreigners who experience eating this stuff swear that it leaves them speechless. It does’nt have after-taste, the kind you experience eating century eggs.

2. Adidas. It’s not your favorite sneakers. Its barbequed chicken innards. Yes. If you like eating patte, Pinoys have their own version of patte, albeit, in its “naked” form.

3. Goto. Its porridge dear with its usual heavenly stuff all there. I think goto is something purely Pinoy because it has your chicken (or beef), your ginger (luya, that what makes it real tasty), your rice stuff and a dash of salt and fish sauce.

4. Kaleskesan. This is an authentic Pangasinense dish that’s very simple. Some pieces of beef meat sprinkled with garlic and onion sprouts, left to boil and added with some “secret” spice. Yummy.

5. Dinuguan. When I was a child, I love eating this dirty stuff. However, when I read the Bible and learned that it’s one of the most prohibited cuisines known to man, I avoided it like a plague. This Pinoy cuisine is dangerous to eat since it consists of blood. Many Pinoys however eat that stuff simply because it has a sour taste, with shreds of pork in it. The combination is wonderful, yet, it nullifies your ticket to heaven.

6. Oysters. Pinoy oysters are one of the best food stuffs in the Philippines. Compared with what we export in other countries, our oysters are one of the best there is in the world, I think.

7. Escargo. Pinoys love to eat escargo or your lowly “kuhol”, especially when cooked with coconut. There’s a uniquely Pinoy way of cooking escargo that Frenchmen would surely love.

8. Sinigang sa miso. Try boiling your favorite fish (lapu-lapu for example) and when it’s soft already, get tamarinds and let it cook there ( a few handfuls would be okey). When the taste of the tamarinds mix with the fish, try putting two to three green long chilis in there (the local ones), then onions. When everything is mixed, put some leavy vegetables in there (kangkong would be nice). Bring all together in a boil and you have your sinigang sa miso. It’s not complete though if you don’t put miso.

9. Bulalo. It’s just your usual beef stew, with your potatoes, beef cubes, taste enhancers, petchay, some whole peppercorns and your petchay.

10. Kwek-kwek. Its just hard boiled egg mixed with orange-colored flour deep fried.