When he was a young boy of five, Kevin Michael Garcia remembers being inundated by the popular binalot by his mom. He ate everything binalot -- from adobo, tocino, longganisa, sisig to tilapia, liempo, tapa and inihaw na baboy. It can to a point that he started to despise binalot.
“I was asking my mom why did it have to be always binalot?,” Garcia recalled. “I didn’t want to see binalot then. I hated it.”
Now 33 years old, Garcia, who started the food vlog Eat’s a Small World, has learned to appreciate binalot and his mom cannot be any happier.
“My mom is the one who watches my weight,” Garcia said. “We don’t live together, but she always watches my vlog. She reminds me if I’m putting on weight.
“So when I have shoots, I eat light. But I taste everything in front of me. Ang ending, busog pa din ako.”
Garcia started Eat’s a Small World only during the pandemic.
“I was super bored when the lockdown started in 2020,” Garcia admitted. “Since 2016, I had been blogging. I just decided to document everything through video by 2020. I had so much time. Then the vlog inspired me to continue.
“You could do very few things at the start of the pandemic. You wanted to eat, watch TV or bond with your family. I think that became the key to feature a lot of food vendors.”
He started ordering online simple food preparations and vlogged in his house. When it comes out, his neighbors were the first ones to order.
“What happens after I featured a certain vendor, I will get messages that a lot ordered from them,” Garcia said. “That was where I get fulfillment.”
He started with the coffee shop that former Manila Mayor Isko Moreno endorsed at the Central Station in Arroceros, Manila.
“That was my first vlog, coffee,” Garcia proudly said.
“The people were always looking for something new to eat,” he added. “They were always hungry. They want to know where they can buy food online.”
Four years later, Garcia, who took up Computer Science at the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila (PLM) does not treat Eat’s a Small World as his business. He has yet to go full-time as a vlogger, since he is still pre-occupied with his work as a manager in an IT company in the graveyard shift.
“I just enjoy this [vlogging] because it’s like wearing different masks for me,” Garcia said. “I can do it. At the same time, I go through different battles.
“You need stability in your [corporate] job, while in your vlog, you need creativity. But I don’t serve anyone.”
There are vlogs that didn’t attract as much viewers, while there were those that amassed as many as 15 million views in just one video upload.
“Like when I vlogged the halo-halo at Bebang in Mandaluyong City,” Garcia recalled. “They allowed me to enter the store [in Wack Wack] and showed me how the halo-halo was being prepared. I saw even the operations.
“The owner told me no non-personnel had entered their store before. I was the only one they trusted. I got to shoot how they really prepared the halo-halo. The long table was really filled with around 500 cups that they assembled. The whole place was very clean.”
Garcia’s goal is to help the business prosper. “In the restaurant, I present the food that they cook, entice the viewers and make them cringe with envy as I eat and enjoy. They might be convinced to also buy.”
Three hours before he starts working at night, Garcia makes it a point to vlog in the afternoon. After work, he manages to vlog again then he goes straight to the office early evening.
Garcia has tried frog, crocodile, snake and fried crickets. “In Sta. Maria, Bulacan, there’s a place there that sells all those exotic food, like in Vietnam or Thailand,” he said. “Crocodile meat is a bit hard to chew, but healthy and medicinal.”
There was also this bakery in Pasig called Panaderia Dimas-alang. “I found out it’s the oldest bakery in the Philippines,” Garcia said. “They have bonete, di ko inakala, pan de regla – all bread. The one that became a bestseller in my features was the giant brazo de Mercedes.”
Garcia also features high-end dining places. He has covered posh restaurants in Solaire, Sofitel and Okada hotels. He balances it with very affordable places like those in Balut (Tondo), Divisoria, Binondo and Banaue.
“So I touched every group,” Garcia said. “I also bring along friends to validate the taste of the food. We really discuss it. I get their pulse and opinion.”
In future episodes of Eat’s a Small World, Garcia expressed his desire to guest sexy actress Ivana Alawi or chef Ninong Ry and collaborate with her.
“I always wanted to collaborate with vloggers because we belong to the same space,” Garcia said. “But I also want to feature celebrities. It’s my dream to see Ivana and share the dining table with her.”
Garcia delivers 10 to 12 vlogs a week at the most. Duration is 90 seconds to five minutes. “There are times when I become such a video addict and do two vlogs a day,” he said.
“Lately, I make my vlogs shorter. The attention span of people can get as short as only two seconds.”
Garcia strictly adheres to his calendar, that’s why he can keep up with his schedule. “I respect my calendar,” Garcia said. “I make sure the entries are all accurate. I get disappointed when that doesn’t happen.”