While considering myself a bit if an authority on Jolibee it was only a few months ago that I found out that Jolibee Vietnam was a thing.
I found this out after seeing one store in Saigon, but ager speaking to former native Rowan Beard found out this was not related to some Filipino diaspora, but that the local love for Jolibee was in fact real. I quite simply had to go and explore….
The brief Jolibee Story
Jolibee was founded before McDonald’s in the Philippines, which gave it a fast food heads start. During this time it became so popular that when McDonalds did enter the market they bowed and the feet of and copied Jolibee. Don’t believe me? Try McDo Spaghetti….
The brand have since expanded to Hong Kong, the Middle-East and even Italy, with the key moniker being that they go to places that have workers from the Philippines.
The outlier here though is Jolibee Vietnam
The Jolibee Vietnam Story
Jolibee Vietnam was started amazingly in 1996 which is 8 years BEFORE Lotteria. By 2011 they had 10 branches, which is now over 150 spread across the country. In schools and with kids across the country the question then tends to “which spaghetti are we getting”?
This means that in Vietnam it is Jolibee vs Lotteria that is the real battle, with Vietnam being the only market outside of the Philippines to have more than 100 (150+) stores.
The Jolibee Vietnam Menu
Overall the Jolibee Vietnam menu has much more in common with Lotteria than it does with either KFC, or McDonalds, both of which copy these two brands to an extent.
Overall though the many is dominated by burgers and fried chicken, with the later being closer to the KFC rather than Dicos variety. Sadly this does mean that they have a gravy station though.
What differs them too is that they also have god awful rice dishes as well as the now infamous spaghetti that people love, or hate.
Lotteria vs Jolibee Vietnam
I have to caveat that this is very much Lotteria Vietnam vs Jolibee Vietnam, in which case I would rather have Lotteria. This is ebacuse the burgers are that big better and that I am not so bothered about the pasta.
If though the questions as indeed Lotteria Spaghetti vs Jolibee Spaghetti, then it is the later that wins it absolutely every single time.