Food Cart Franchises:
I saw a Hundred and One ways to Sell Siomai/Siopao: Most of those offering franchises are for siomai stands. The prices range between 70k to 300k. For instance, a Hen Lin small stand was 300k.

Lechon and Inasal: Heck’s, Inasal, you name it! All were very busy with people inquiring. Too bad no one provided a sample.

Food Toppings: I saw A San Miguel Purefoods labeled franchise called Outbox. Sounds interesting. Next to it was a Smokey’s Hotdog stand franchise but no one was available to talk to me.

One of the best samples I tasted was the one from Scramble King, they provided a little cup of the ice dessert which I vividly remembered buying from a school vendor when I was 6 or 7 years old. It’s been years since I’ve seen or tasted scramble.

There was also another franchise selling Potato Chips in a stick (Twist Chipstix). It was freshly cut and twirled in a stick (see photo). They sold it for 50 pesos. I was not really interested in ordering it but instead I wanted to try their twister fries but it was not available. The potato chips was bland, and the barbecue powder didn’t help much. The potatoes were also not that crunchy. The sales staff were quite enthusiastic though.

Interesting food items.
There were several exhibitors that offered Coconut Sugar. They claimed it was best for diabetics as it had low Glycemic Index.

Tempting offers:
I bought a bag of Tower Yema candies, a chicharon from Marilao, Bulacan, dilis and pusit (3 for 100 offer) from another seller, and finally I bought Tin’s Ball of Ham from Belcris Foods for 300 pesos after sampling their ham.

Tower Yema Candies

are of course hard to resist so I bought one bag for 30 pesos.

Kitchen gadgets: I fancied the charcoal stoves displayed there. I saw 2 kinds: the Joy Charcoal Stove and the JY Firebricks (the oven)
Different kinds of knives for whatever uses you might think of.



For the other interesting food items, would it also make sense to sell them online? Would anyone be actually interested in them?

I literally ran away as fast as I can from those Pushy/Aggressive sales agents : Neo “Fireless” Stove? Water Purifiers for 50k ?! Citibank credit card vendors that were asking for my credit card number?!

I plan to call the ones I am interested in soon. But first I have to prepare my questions. For the franchise offerings I intend to ask them for basic figures, you know things like breakdown of expected costs, the the unit prices of their goods, delivery policies and what the expected daily sales will be, to see what kind of profit I will make. Things I will eventually need to make a sensible business plan. I also have to ask myself, since I am still working fulltime in IT (at MrC’s company), how much hours can I still give to this? Are the earnings from this worth the time and effort?

Yellow Cab for Pizza

Earle’s, Almon Marina, Subway and Oliver’s has good sandwiches

Brother’s Burger for really good burgers

Cafe Breton for crepes

Spiral (Sofitel) and Shangri-la Makati (Circles) for a good Buffet

There is a Belgian Fries stand at Greenhills (near the theater) and at the Promenade

Caramia and Fior Gelato for Gelato (Italian ice cream)

If you want to try local brands try Burger Machine (freshly cooked on the spot and really cheap) and Jollibee.  Forget about American chains — the quality is different here, you’ll probably get disappointed. I tried Wendy’s at Greenbelt last weekend and their most expensive burger was really pathetic – and I don’t usually criticize that much.

The French Baker sells pretty good fresh bread. We found good wheat bread (among others) at La Coeur de France and they usually have a have buy one take one offer.

Juri’s (Ermita) for Dutch food and Belgian Beer.

Earle’s Delicatessen for sausages, cold cuts, very slow service though.

Rustan’s Supermarket also has savory sausages in their grocery and I also found some more on display at their Cafe in Makati.

Santis has many branches across the city — it is a small but reliable deli. This is where we buy MrC’s Farmers ham.

Bakery at Shangri-La Hotel — someone told me about this but I haven’t really tried this yet.

Metro Manila has a branch of American chains such as Bubba Gump’s, Friday’s, Chili’s,  Krispy Kreme, Dairy Queen, California Pizza Kitchen and even Hooters (Mall of Asia) among others. Texas Grill (El Pueblo) is consistently great (try their buffalo wings!)

Miss Costco? Try S&R or Makro.

Duo Restaurant at Serendra for European dishes and really good salad. Chefs Quarters also is just as good as Duo but you spend much less.

Mario’s for steaks and everything else.

If you know anyone who sells fresh milk and a good Pasta restaurant, please let me know

The Halo-halo is a cold dessert which is a mixture of local fruits such as coconut meat, beans, ube yam, ube ice cream (purple ice cream), red beans, langka (nangka), and topped with crushed ice and evaporated milk etc.

Another local favorite and guilty pleasure is the dried seafood that you fry until it’s crunchy. It smells aweful! However, it’s really yummy when eaten with even with just plain white steamed rice. When I was little I remember that they sometimes mix in fresh goat’s or carabao’s milk with the steamed rice when eating the dried fish. I still do this myself sometimes.

Buffets are everywhere and they don’t cost so much and even for locals. Here at Market! Market! we had lunch in Filipino buffet that costs 250 pesos (4 euros) normally but they have merienda buffets that only cost like 150 pesos (3 euros). This particular Filipino food buffet, inspite of having a smaller selection than Dads Triple V seemed to have a great selection and better quality. I also like the fact that it is quieter than Dads Triple V.