Foodie Spotlight | Jolly Spaghetti

Every Filipino kid has tried having Jolly Spaghetti as their staple meal whenever their parents bring them to the store or have it as a take away. Jollibee is not just about Chicken Joy it is also about that Filipino-style past, which is the Jolly Spaghetti. Over the years the product has evolved from just another part of the menu that caters to the locals who has gotten used to the way it was prepared. Jollibee has become the benchmarked for other foreign fast food restaurant opening up their store in the Philippines and trying their hand to localize their brand of what is a Filipino-style spaghetti. It is either a hit or miss in the way how you’ll capture your market to keep up on the original who has made this a favourite.

For those who have heard about the Jolly Spaghetti, it is not the usual Italian-style pasta. But a Filipino version which is a medley of spaghetti noodles, ground meat, sliced hot dogs, and a somewhat sweet sauce made from banana ketchup.

Usually, a Filipino Carinderia (Filipino food stall) would have spaghetti served up, but not the kind where high end restaurants serve it. The origin of the Jolly Spaghetti goes back to the 1940s having shortage of tomato ingredients for the sauce was replaced by bananas that’s one of the key ingredients.

The local food stands or sometimes a neighbor start their business, and that is where they include a Filipino-style spaghetti as one of their food in their menu.

Minimalist Pasta

In the early days of Jollibee, the Jolly Spaghetti was served in a Styrofoam for take away, but due to change in being recyclable product their switched to cardboard packaging that slowly taken effect in the early 2010s. It just shows the name of the product with the Jollibee mascot’s head and the name of the brand.

The cardboard’s insides are made of wax material and it is evident when you open the product with the food properly laid flat inside. There are no other details of the packaging for take away other than the branding and little information on the exterior.

Meatiest Spaghetti

The serving really depends if you are fortunate to get the better cooked pasta than the usual bland. But for this one despite being shaken from transit with the sauce sticking on the underside of the cardboard cover it is as meaty as your usual Jolly Spaghetti can get, and it might be a long time since you tried one.

Thickness of the sauce and the right balance of ground meat and sliced hotdogs with all that sweet sauce was just about right to make you want a second heap of servings. It’s not oily or the noodles being overcooked. It was that fine line of good servings of what a Filipino-style Spaghetti should be without the dramas.

Overall it might appear dry but it is not, and this has been one of the underrated Jollibee products on their menu that you might want to have once in a while. But not all the time coming on second if your mum cooks a better pasta goodness. So far either you order it as part of the Jolly Kiddie Meal or the basic are both the same and it really is that good if you want to compare it to competition fast food joints out there.

• Food Quality: 4 out of 5
• Affordability: A-
• Overall: Heaps good the second time around.
• Customer Service: They're a little bit robotic and not much paying attention until you call them out.

Jolly Spaghetti | Retailed at: ₱ 97.00 Pesos [$ 2.64 AUD | $ 1.85 USD]**

** - Currency Converter via Google.com