Of PX goods and Korean marts

I will admit that I love imports. My love for US products started quite early in my childhood, surprisingly shaped by American cartoon strips - specifically Popeve

- MARIANNE GO

Perhaps Gen Z and Gen Alpha may not realize that the fast food chicken restaurant Popeyes was a popular cartoon about a sailor, with bulging biceps who smokes a wooden pipe, that first appeared in print on Jan. 17, 1929 and was still quite popular in the 1960s.

However, Popeye the sailor was not really into chicken. He was likely more of a vegetarian because his favorite was spinach, which gave him the energy to pop his already bulging biceps and throw a wallop of a punch to his enemies, foremost of which were Brutus or Bluto.

His true love was Olive Oyl and one of his more memorable characters friends was a hamburger-loving moocher named Wimpee, more formally known as J. Wellington Wimpee, who regularly asked his friends for money to buy a hamburger with the famous line, "I'll gladly pay you on Tuesday for a hamburger today."

Oh how I enjoyed following the antics of Popeye, Olive Oyl and Brutus, and the eternal fight to win the heart of the stick-thin Olive. But what really was ingrained in my mind were hamburger and spinach. You see, before Popeye, my favorite snack of all time was a meaty footlong hotdog from Milky Way...the same Milky Way that continues to successfully operate under the stewardship of Jay and Malou Gamboa along Pasay Road, but alas no longer serves that footlong hotdog, but continues to serve delicious Filipino food favorites.