I just spent the last month working in the Philippines. Living in Manila for the majority of that time was a lot of fun and a great work-to-life balance. While in the Philippines, my co-worker and I noticed that every fast food place offers spaghetti. I also recently watched Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown episode and he tried the spaghetti at Jollibee (which is like a Filipino McDonalds). I have also recently reviewed the best healthy delivery services in Manila and now it’s time to find the best unhealthy option! We thought it was pretty strange and decided to see which fast food chain had the best Spaghetti in the Philippines.
I am not a huge fast food fan, but the Philippines seems to have them all. KFC, Wendys, McDonalds and Jollibee are just about on every corner in Manila. It certainly has to be one of the most Americanized countries in SE Asia.
My colleague and I decided to start our journey off with the the fast food behemoth, McDonalds. We used a 10 point scale to rate all of the Spaghetti and we got some pretty interesting results.
As you can see from the pictures above, McDonalds didn’t even try…the presentation was absolutely terrible and the taste was actually worse than it looks. The McDonald’s Spaghetti is a big McDont! Ironically enough, they have fried chicken called a “McDo” and it was actually really good! The McDonalds Spaghetti was pretty much inedible.
Taste: 1/10
Presentation: 1/10
Service: 1/10
Overall: 1/10
Price: 50 Pesos ($1 USD)
Wendys was the next stop on our spaghetti spectacular! We ordered a frosty and one order of good old fashioned spaghetti. The presentation looked the best and actually tasted way better than the other competitors, but it still wasn’t amazing.
Taste: 3/10
Presentation: 5/10
Service: 4/10
Overall 4/10
Price: 50 Pesos ($1 USD)
*Frosty was 10/10 🙂
After Wendys we headed over to KFC to try out the Spaghetti. Out of all of the fast food restaurants, KFC + Spaghetti seemed to be the strangest combination. The KFC presentation was actually pretty good, but it looked better than it tasted.
Taste: 2/10
Presentation: 4/10
Service: 4/10
Overall 3/10
Price: 50 Pesos ($1 USD)
We saved the new fast food chain for last. Jollibee is a Filipino multinational chain and they have locations all over the world. It was my first time here and I was not impressed. The Spaghetti was pretty terrible, but we noticed a lot of other customers eating it here. It was by far the most popular compared to the other chains. My co-worker ordered some really strange french fries and a burger. The fries tasted like they were covered in cheetos cheese powder. He also had a burger and said it was quite good! I wasn’t able to have more than one bite of the spaghetti, it was really sweet and the texture was awful.
Taste: 2/10
Presentation: 3/10
Service: 4/10
Overall 3/10
Price: 50 Pesos ($1 USD)
In conclusion all of the spaghetti was pretty bad, we weren’t able to eat more than 1-2 bites at any of the chains. The only place that had edible spaghetti was Wendy’s and I still wouldn’t recommend it over their main dishes. I found it pretty strange that all of the chains had an interesting consistency. It was like they had added sugar or something, since they all had a bit of a sweet taste. My colleague described the experience as:
“It was like a nightmare, made of red sauce and soggy noodles. The intrusion upon my tongue was perhaps one of the most offensive acts of self-mutilation that I have ever derived for myself. Highly recommend.” -Greg Elfrink