CULTURAL PREFERENCES WATCH: Neat Economist article on the fact that the most popular fast food restaurant in the Philippines is a native one: Jollibee and its founder Tony Tan. They just make better food, if you're a Filipino:

His palate, indeed, seems to have been Mr Tan's greatest source of confidence throughout his struggle against McDonald's. Modest in every other respect, he never once doubted that he could make better food—or at least “better” to Filipinos. To this day, he still attends the weekly three-hour meetings of Jollibee's “new products board”. The decisions made there find their way into “the commissariat”, a top-secret spice kitchen and the nerve centre from which Jollibee outlets are supplied.

Describing Mr Tan's recipes is not easy. Generally speaking, the Philippines is not famous for its food, and cardiologists consider it downright evil. In their own kitchens, Filipinos tend to cook meat with stunning amounts of sugar and salt, and to soak it in bagoong, a sort of brine. But no matter how poor, they like to splash out every so often on fast food. And then they like burgers that are sweet and juicy, spaghetti that is saccharine and topped with hot dogs (no Italian would recognise it), beef with honey and rice, and, for dessert, variations on the mango theme. All this Jollibee provides, whereas McDonald's, perhaps hidebound by its global standards, never quite seems to get it right.

Via the blogga from Manila cheesedip, who adds: "This is the only country where McDonald's doesn't dominate the fastfood market." In a related way, I'm still waiting for the article that explains to me why India is the only country where Hollywood doesn't dominate the movie market. There's gotta be reasons --right?-- why American pop culture can take over in some areas in some places but not always the same areas. Saying "cultural preferences" is an acceptable answer, just not as specific as I would like.