Hicks' Weekly Dish: The Jollibee phenomenon
graham.hicks
Published:
August 20, 2019
Updated:
August 20, 2019 6:57 PM EDT
The Valdez family from Leduc waited in a three-hour lineup to eat at the new Jollibee: Left to right, Nathan, 9; dad Ray; The Jollibee mascot, Maechiel, 12; Reychelle, 15; mom Ritchiel. Photos by GRAHAM HICKS / EDMONTON SUN
Jollibee
3803 Calgary Trail
jollibeecanada.com
586-405-1333
7 a.m. to 11 p.m. seven days a week
No specified delivery service
Ratings – (within fast food category)
Food : 4 of 5 Suns
Ambience: 3.5 of 5 Suns
Service: 4 of 5 Suns
Fast-food dinner for two: Basic, $15, loaded $25
By GRAHAM HICKS
I’d wait a week or more before visiting this phenomenon known as Jollibee … unless you are prepared to wait in line for THREE HOURS!
Wowee zowee, you’d think this Jollibee is some kind of superstar, a Connor McDavid, an Oprah Winfrey or the most famous Filipino alive, boxer Manny Pacquiao.
Are all these Filipinos lined up to get a superstar’s autograph?
Nope.
At the end of the long and patient wait is simply the Jollibee brand’s fast food, ordered and picked up at a countertop, eaten out of cartons at standard fast-food tables using plastic cutlery.
There’s Jolly Crispy Chicken, sweet spaghetti with chopped-up hot dog, just one style of hamburger and a dish unique to Filipino culture, a noodle mix known as palabok.
Jollibee, you see, is the McDonald’s of the Philippines – 40 years old, with 1,150 fast-food outlets in that country and, as of March 2019, 234 outlets outside the Philippines.
The very busy kitchen/counter at Edmonton’s first Jollibee
Most of the 70,000 Filipinos living in Edmonton grew up in the Philippines. Jollibee was the holy grail – the extra-special place your parents took you for a very special fast-food treat.
Jollibee was more special to young Filipinos than a trip to McDonald’s here. The bill would represent the family’s disposable income for a month. The average daily wage in the Philippines is about $10, yet food prices are about the same as in Canada … which is why the main Filipino export is people and the country’s main source of wealth is money sent back home from balikbayan – Filipinos living abroad.
Second-generation Filipino-Canadian kids know all about Jollibee. No family trip back to the Philippines was complete without taking the cousins, titas (aunties) and titos (uncle) to Jollibee for a fast food treat.
So Jollibee has a near-mystical quality, reminding a large segment of our population of their youth. This is a pilgrimage – the line up snaking through a large temporary tent outside the new Jollibee on Calgary Trail was full of parents sharing their Jollibee experience with their kids.
Jollibee Foods are smart operators, witness the advance publicity the Jollibee on Calgary Trail received with its food-for-a-year promotion to those first in line on last week’s opening day.
Where Filipinos go, Jollibee goes. Jollibee has been aggressively expanding with 43 outlets in the USA and now five in Canada, two in Winnipeg, Mississauga and Scarborough in Toronto, and now Edmonton. Its five-year goal is to have 100 restaurants in Canada.
So what does Jollibee have that other fast-food chains don’t?
Filipino-style spaghetti, for one. The tomato sauce is much sweeter than the North American version, and it always comes with chopped up hot dog. The red tomato sauce is flavoured by a sweet banana jam that’s very much a Filipino taste. The spaghetti is popular with kids, but everybody eats it.
Jollibee’s sweet spaghetti accompanied by one piece of (spicy) crispy chicken.
Jollibee makes a big deal out of its crispy chicken, but it’s really no different from any other breaded and deep-fried chicken, be it KFC, 7-Eleven or Korean-style.
Palabok, on the other hand, is unique to Filipino cuisine. More than any other Americanized dish on the Jollibee menu, it represents the Filipino enjoyment of salty, sour, crunchy and savoury. Salty shrimp is sprinkled, along with crisp crumbled pork rind (chicharron), shallots and sliced hard-boiled egg on top of noodles flavoured with fish sauce. Jollibee’s palabok is milder and less aggressively flavoured than the home-made versions I have tried, but it’s a good introduction to the dish.
Jollibee’s most authentic Filipino dish, the noodle-based palabok.
Some other Jollibee fast-food variations — rice and mashed potatoes are available as sides. French fries are to be had, especially with the crispy chicken, but are not front and centre. Same with hamburgers. A choice of drinks includes pop or pineapple juice. Dessert is exactly the same as McDonald’s deep-fried apple tarts, only with peach/mango filling.
Jollibee will settle down – the lineup won’t last forever, but the Filipino population in Edmonton will keep the store endlessly busy. For non-Filipinos, it’s “safe” food to try (though the spicy chicken alternative is East-Indian hot!) that’s a little different from the fast-food norm.
FOOD NOTES
The food at the Fringe is not very interesting – the same old, same old at most booths, other than a new entry from the yummy Avila Arepa at the north end of the festival’s Old Strathcona site.
The big news, however, is the reincarnation of the former Pack Rat Louie in that great Fringe location on the corner of 83 Avenue and 104 Street.
It’s now called Lyon Restaurant, and is now open, but represents the reunion of Packrat Louie’s operating partner/manager Jodh Singh with award-winning executive chef Jan Trittenbach. They made magic for a few years in the past as Packrat Louie, and now, with Lyon’s casual, French-influenced menu, will likely make magic again.
http://torontosun.com/life/food/hicks-weekly-dish-the-jollibee-phenomenon
