Dining With A Jolly Bee

"Wuz You Ever Bit By A Dead Bee?"

Friday night I traveled way the f#^% down Main Street to try out a recent import from the Philippines.

No, not a massage parlor full of LBFMs, but instead the Pinoy equivalent of McDonald's, the fast food chain known as Jollibee.

It was not the best idea to do this on a Friday night during the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo.  Jollibee is on a weird corner of OST, Main and Kirby right by Reliant Stadium.  Best to go in daylight and in less traffic!

Jollibee offers a variety of pseudo-Asian grub, with a bunch of items that would be perfectly happy on any American fast food menu.

Burgers and fried chicken are the mainstays, but there's noodle dishes, soups, rice dinners and these little Spamburgers that are definitely not local...

(Note: Pics are not mine, just ones I found on the web.)

I tried the burger steak.  Kinda reminded me of the old Hungry Man Salisbury Steak frozen dinners.
Kinda bland, but I enjoyed the sticky rice and the abundance of mushrooms. 

Next up was the spaghetti.  I had a pasta jones goin' on, and this seemed to fit the bill.

Seemed to, anyway...

Jollibee spaghetti is not like anything you've known before.   It's got a sweet sauce, kinda like the orangey goop that comes in a can of Spagetti-O's.  Also, there's chunks of ham & hot dogs in the sauce, and a big ol' fistful of cheddar cheese that melts into a solid wad of yellow ooze.

Still, it was better than some spaghetti I've had in Italian places.

For dessert, there was the infamous "Halo-Halo" (Pronounced "hollow-hollow), the most bizarre mixture of stuff ever put in a cup and covered in shaved ice.

How was it?   Let me put it this way, your gringo ass isn't prepared for the Halo-Halo.

Oh, it looks festive enough, but lurking under the bed of shaved ice and condensed milk are horrors untold...

Little red beans, super-firm gelatin chunks, all sorts of tropical fruit bits, coconut slivers, and more round yellow beans.

Those scoops on top are ice cream.  One's a purple yam flavor, the other, who knows?  Not shown is a big chunk of caramel flan on the other side.

Just mix it up and go with it.  Don't fight it.  Let the Bee have its way with you.

And all will be well...