Getting food during a pandemic

A hung a food basket by the window for contact free deliveries.

Before Manila went on a lockdown, I would have all of my meals ordered from outside, not because I don’t cook, but I because my lease doesn’t allow me to. When the lockdown happened, my landlord was gracious enough to allow me to cook. He even lent me his rice cooker, pots and an electric stove. Problem is I don’t have a fridge, and without one the only foods I can cook would be those that came out of a can. Ordering through Grab and Food Panda was a hit or miss. Having not much much options, I signed for a meal delivery service until Grab's supply of driver stabilized.

The food was great and even came with fruits and dessert, in addition to the three meals. Unfortunately, it burned a hole in my pocket. When April came and the lockdown didn’t seem to be ending soon, I decided that I had to come up with a plan to minimize my expenses without slowly poisoning myself with unhealthy food. I stuck with the plan to this day that it has become a routine.

For breakfast, I cook two eggs with no rice. I never really thought that I can survive the entire morning without rice, but it turns out eggs were quite filling. Besides, I gained considerable weight through two weeks on a meal delivery service that I certainly don’t mind losing my quarantine fat by skipping rice for breakfast.

By noon I order lunch and dinner using Grab Food. To minimize my interaction with delivery drivers I placed a basket outside my window where the drivers can place the food. Booking a driver was hard during the first two weeks of April that I could only get my order booked half the time, during which I have no choice but eat canned food. By May the supply of drivers has stabilized. The downside with using Grab Food is that there are very few restos available in my area. I find that Food Panda has more options, but their drivers are less likely to use the chat function in their app. (Why is that, seriously?) We all share the same address in our apartment compound, and I hate it when Food Panda drivers to knock on and disturb the tenants closest to the gate. I also like that Grab Food allows you to tip via the app.

One of the things I hate with ordering food online is the amount of plastic that comes with my order. I always indicate that I do not want utensils included, but almost all of the time they still come with plastic spoons. Also, some restos still use styrofoam as packaging. I guess it can’t be helped. We’re in an outbreak after all.

In addition to food, I also get my groceries delivered. I have only been to the grocery twice since the lockdown and while they check shoppers for temperature and require everyone to wear a mask, the number of shoppers they let in is still hardly close to one that allows actual physical distancing. Grab and services like Metromart offer grocery delivery, but their selections are limited. The best service I found so far was actually from Lazada. Their online store is well-stocked. It took two weeks for my order to arrive though, but I don’t mind. The items I ordered were mostly for worst-case scenario purposes, stuff to keep me alive in case water, electricity and food delivery becomes unavailable – just cereals, biscuits, bottled drinks and canned food. I actually intend to keep them permanently as my doomsday survival stock, but hopefully, we would never get to that.