Day 3 Street Food: A Filipino’s Fast Food

Posted on Oct 3, 2011 by Chelo in 31 Days of (my) Filipino Culture, Featured Articles, Filipino Food, Street Foods | 9 comments

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Every culture (especially in Asia) have their variety of street food (defined: food obtainable from a streetside vendor, often from a makeshift or portable stall.) These are generally very affordable.

Some street foods are unique to one region while others are of continental fame.  Since my background is mainly in the largest island of the Philippines (Luzon) I only listed the ones popular to Northern and Central Luzon area.

So let’s start with…

Baguio’s Best

I have vivid memories of when I was a little girl walking along Burnham Park with my family getting ready to get on our jeepney ride home.  Right along the curb where the jeepneys wait for passengers to fill up, there are rows of vendors selling these goodies:

Mangoes are Philippines apples compared to the US.  We simply have all kinds of ‘em. My favorite is the young green magoes that goes great with Bagoong.

Mangoes Photo Source

Then there’s the grilling kind…Corn on the cob drenched in butter and salt that you can smell a mile away,

                                            Dried squid and Dried fish which I don’t recall ever eating on the road (we have eaten this at home with rice)

                                                                 and everyone’s favorite the Bananacue is  fried plantain banana covered with caramelized brown sugar. Oh so yum. Check out Vanjo over at Panlasang Pinoy to learn how to make them.

Photo Source – Baguio City Street Foods

And I can’t forget our very favorite especially when traveling to the province…Butong Pakwan  (watermelon seeds).  Imagine sunflower seeds…except these little goodies, you have to crack open with your teeth one little goodness at a time.  You know you’ve had enough when you can’t feel your lips and your fingers are wrinkly

Photo Source – 365 Great Pinoy Stuff

Naglalaway ka na?   Teka, meron pa...

(Is your mouth watering yet? Wait, there’s more…)

Cabanatuan City

is a 5 hour bus drive from Baguio City.  I remember we would have summer trips with our parents to visit our Lolo and Lola .  During these vacations we enjoyed a variety of treats only available to us while we’re in Cabanatuan City.

Here goes…

Some people consider Halo-Halo a street food but for my family and me, it was a luxury food that we had to purchase from a sari-sari store or something we make at home for special occasions.  But on normal Cabanatuan City HOT days, we just wait for that familiar sound of a cart being pushed down the street.  We wait. We anticipate the chiming bell to confirm that it is indeed the Dirty Ice Cream man…

Ice cream man - Photo Source

Why on earth is it called DIRTY ICE CREAM?  Not quite sure of the exact reason but a wild guess would be because this type of ice cream is generally made by the vendor himself and not processed in a manufacturing company…dirty ice cream - Photo Source 

Whenever we were up for something warm, we always went for the Fish Balls. These things are widely popular in neighboring Asian countries.  But probably a little different in its composition.  The Philippine fish balls are usually made with flaked Pollock fish.

Photo Source – Fishball

Now keep in mind that we never had to leave home to get these “treats”. We simply had to wait for the vendors.   Street vendors had their very own makeshift  deep frying cart of some sort.  Ingenious, if you ask me.

Taho (sweet tofu pudding) is not really my favorite. I don’t like it. My sister loves this.  She would literally sit in front of my Lolo and Lola’s house waiting for the Taho man… (teehee)

Busog Sarap Cusinera has a great recipe for Taho and awesome presentation of it.Taho man - Photo Source

Viewer Discretion is Advised:

for all my State side and other foreign friends and readers…

If you have a sensitive stomach

and would rather not

see weird exotic asian “food”

I must ask you to STOP reading right about here…

For the rest of you

curious people…

you were warned!

Let’s talk about Isaw.  

No.

I’m not referring to the past tense of “see”.  It is pronounced, E-SAO.

Isaw - Photo Source

These guys right here

once belonged to…

the inside of a chicken…chicken intestines…used to digest chicken food… and transport digested chicken food …get the picture?

I wikipedia-ed how these are prepared:

Remove from the unfortunate chicken. Clean (wash the *junk* out). Turn inside out. Clean.

*Clean several times* (I’m hopeful)

Boil. Dip/Marinate in some kind of seasoning.           Then finally, grill.

The truth: I’ve eaten countless Isaws in my Philippine life. 

Moving on…

On this picture below. You’ll see an assortment of sorts.  These are the more famous of Philippine street food…

Chicken Isaw, Pig Isaw, Betamax, Adidas, Helmet, Hotdogs, etc. Lloyd John has a more detailed description of the said assortment here IF you’d like to check it out. Let’s just say, no part of the chicken goes to waste. Except maybe the waste…

The truth: I’ve ONLY eaten countless Isaws in my Philippine life…and a  few Betamax. Very few.

My Vegetarian Sister’s Nightmare:

Assortment - Photo Source

Shhh…

Did somebody say “Baluuuuuut?”

Balut is essentially duck/chicken egg that is pre-hatched to a certain age (usually up to 18 day old) and then boiled.  Resulting in something like this…

Balut - Photo Source

..it’s usually eaten warm with a sprinkle of salt and vinegar.

Soup, yolk, beak, feathers, and all.

Bless that little chick’s heart

I warned ya’ didn’t I?

How do you eat it? Watch it here.

You can take the Pinay out of Pinas…but’ ya can’t take Pinas out of the Pinay…

So what did I miss?

                                                   What street food do you know of?

                                     Indulge in?

I promise I won’t tell…

If you don’t tell about my Isaw…

(Click the Logo)

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