Not just for breakfast anymore

Unless you live in the Pacific rim that is

where it's spamarific

Diner serves Spam, Spam, Spam (Reuters)
Reuters - Spamburgers, Spam nuggets, Spam Spaghetti, Caesar salad with Spam, Spam and eggs: the menu at the
Spamjam restaurant in Manila could be straight out of the Monty Python sketch.

"I'm a Spam lover," said Philip Abadilla, who opened the world's first Spam restuarant in December. "It's always on my mind."

While the canned luncheon meat will forever be ridiculed by fans of the British comedians, it is a much loved staple in the Philippines.

Filipinos eat 2.75 million pounds (1.25 million kg) of the stuff every year, and woe betide anyone arriving from the United States who doesn't bring a few cans for their relatives.

"It appeals to my taste buds," said Aris Yambao, a 28-year-old advertising executive on his second visit to the red, yellow and blue restaurant in one of Manila's enormous shopping malls.

Yambao was one of just eight people in the half-full diner on Thursday lunchtime, but Abadilla said he gets up to 300 customers a day and is in negotiations to open two further branches.

First produced in 1937 by Hormel Foods of the United States, Spam became an institution during World War II.

It gave its name to junk e-mail because of the singing Vikings in the Monty Python sketch, who kept drowning out a waitress offering dishes such as spam, egg, spam, spam, bacon and spam.

Hormel, whose Philippine venture helped Abadilla set up Spamjam, is hoping to take the restaurant to other countries.

For people who don't like Spam, such as the female customer played by Graham Chapman in the sketch, the menu also offers hot dogs.

To which the Spam-loving waitress played by Terry Jones would have said: "Urgghh!"

Now playing: Prelude No. 3, from the album Leaning Into The Night by Ottmar Liebert (released 1997)