Alex Eala Reveals The Filipino Foods She Misses Most While Away From Home

For a tennis player who spends much of the year moving from one tournament city to another, homesickness can be as simple as missing a particular food.

For Alex Eala, it is adobo. And desserts. And pork barbecue. Filipino food is not always easy to find when you are thousands of miles from home, moving from one hotel, airport and tournament to the next.

“I miss Filipino food, especially adobo and desserts,” Eala said in an interview last May 2026.

Her family tries to close the gap. “They always cook for me Pinoy food,” she told The National in 2025. Food from home, she said, makes everybody “feel more connected.”

Whenever she gets back to Manila, pork barbecue is waiting. “Every time I come back, I always get pork barbecue,” she said in a 2023 interview with Globe. The list of her favorite dishes gets longer. Her father, she told BAGEL Magazine, is good at inihaw and giniling. When her mother visits her in London, she asks for nilaga.

“People are like, ‘Wow, that’s an interesting choice, not sinigang?’” Eala recalled. “I’m like, yeah, nilaga.”

But it’s dessert that can be harder to find abroad, like her favorite mais con yelo: sweet corn, shaved ice and milk, cold and creamy. “There are things that are very unique, you know, that are very difficult to find here,” she said. “Like certain flavours, like mais con yelo. So good.”

Asked by the WTA in August about what traditions she enjoys, Eala went straight back to the table.

“I think every time I go home, I get a good Filipino meal,” she said. “Every time I go home, it’s the first thing we do. So, a home cooked meal in my actual home.”

She is no homebody, though. A driven tennis player, Eala arrived at the US Open as the world No. 18, after winning her first WTA Tour singles title in Washington, D.C. She eats her way through every stop.

“I’m definitely a restaurant person and a shopping person,” she said at US Open Media Day. “Or maybe cafes, bakeries. I love that. I’m such a foodie. Maybe it’s the Filipino in me.”

In New York, she has restaurants she returns to every year. The Filipino places in Queens were too far from her hotel this time. In Manila, she says she wants to work through the restaurants recognized by the MICHELIN Guide. She’s already been to  Automat, and Manam is a staple. “I love Manam. I feel like that’s just a good staple for really good Filipino food.”

Adobo. Pork barbecue. Inihaw. Giniling. Nilaga. Caldereta. Mais con yelo. Not a bad list of reasons to come home.