Shopping
A large variety of food is grown and processed locally throughout the year. Domestically raised food is cheap compared to other countries. Also, foods locally produced reaches the market in a fresher condition than, for example, in the US. There are also imported foods available from neighboring countries and the west. Canned goods are relatively cheap, but things like imported cheese and meat are costly.
Basic food is cheapest and often of the best quality in markets. These correspond to what Americans call Farmers' Markets. Rice costs approximately 11.50 pesos per kilo, pork is about 60 pesos, chicken 60, and beef 80. The price of fish and seafood is very inconsistent. As long as the weather is good prices may be as low as 18 pesos a kilo for fish, but when there has been a typhoon, or just bad weather, the price may double or triple.
In comparison to meat and fish, vegetables generally are not cheap. The most common vegetables in The Country are potatoes, onions, carrots, cabbage, beans and eggplant. These all cost 10 to 15 pesos a kilo most of the time. Untypical vegetables such as cauliflower, red cabbage, and head lettuce are grown in the mountains around Baguio. But prices for these western vegetables are quite high. Head lettuce sometimes reaches 85 pesos a kilo.
There also are native vegetables, many of them not found in western countries. The most important are: sweet potatoes (kamote), pumpkin (kalabasa), kasaba, kangkong, malunggay, gabe, ube, sitaw, lima beans (patani).
Sweet potatoes are not unlike potatoes in taste, but have an underlying sweetness. The color varies from yellow to violet. Cassava, gabe and ube are also carbohydrate vegetables, similar to the potato. Kangkong and malunggay are leafy green vegetables. Sitaw are very long string beans.
There is an abundance of tropical fruit available. Fruit is cheapest on markets. In Manila, the biggest market for fruits is Divisoria. Another market in Manila with a wide variety of high quality fruits is the San Andres market in the tourist belt. However, fruit prices at San Andres market are high.
MARKETS
Markets vary only a little from one another. The center is generally a hall or wide building, a great part of which is the wet section where meats, fowl, and seafood are sold. In and around the hall, many vegetable and fruit dealers can be found. There are always some grocery stores around the markets which often also stock kitchenware and household products. In nearby side streets there are hardware and auto supply stores.
Big markets often have a very wide selection of clothing whereas at the smaller markets, clothing is scant.
It is possible to bargain at traditional markets. In modern stores, it is also possible to ask for and to get discounts for items which cost a few hundred pesos or more.
At the market, the customer has the best chance to bargain if he goes in the early morning. Vendors take a good early sale as a positive sign for the rest of the day, and therefore are often willing to give a good discount. The term explaining this attitude is buena mano, coming from Spanish and literally meaning "good hand" or "lucky hand."
Fixed prices are often only a formality. For example, hardware or households products bought at a market have, below the so called fixed price, a fixed discount price (often called the last price) which is readily available to those who ask for it.
Stores will generally give a discount of 20 to 30 %. Wandering street vendors, on the contrary, will first offer prices which are three or four times as high as one would pay in a store and one may therefore start to bargain by offering 20 % of the amount first demanded by the vendors.
This page: http://www.cockatoo.com/english/philippines/philippines_shopping.htm
|
