Sinagag Express

Lahug, Cebu, Philippines. I love cheap tasty food. A great fast food chain here in Cebu is Sinagag Express. My Cebu friends make fun of me because I call it Synagogue Express. The food served here certainly is not kosher. Sinagag refers to fry, as in fried meats such as pork, chicken, or beef “tapas”, or sausage or hotdog “salogs”.

I skip all the gut lining red meats and order the tanigue salog. This is a slice of tuna served on a sizzling plate with rice and an easy over egg on top of the rice. I like to flip the egg over onto the hot iron plate to cook the nearly raw top. Then I eat the egg with some of the rice seasoned with a dash of soy sauce. Yummy. I then proceed to the tuna.

All types of Filipinos drop in here to eat, or walk past on their way to somewhere. This is a great people watching spot, the equivalent of a doughnut shop in America. There are taxi and truck drivers, construction crews, telemarketing girls, policemen, late night disco dancers, and midday uniform wearing schoolmates. They all come for some fried meats & rice. This is the basic staple of the Pinoy diet.

The guys working at the Lahug franchise are friendly and competent. They want me to buy my own franchise (for which they probably get a commission). They claim their 24-hour Filipino cheap eats spot grosses at least 20,000 pesos a day. I told them this chain would do well in USA. They want me to hire them to work in America. I told them ok and worked thru the numbers with them. I converted minimum wage from US$ to pesos and they were so excited to get paid so much. That is until I also began to convert the normal expenses in USA for rent, utilities, food and transportation. I ended with their expenses totaling within 200 pesos of their theoretical USA salary. The conclusion was that they would have to come back to Philippines to enjoy a higher standard of living.

Yep, that’s why I’m here. To enjoy the cheap eats and higher standard of living that everyone can afford here in SE Asia.