EATS: Street Food at The UP Diliman Campus

You might see people riding around your neighbourhood in a bicycle, with the bicycle having an attached cart with some sort of pan or whatever. These are the street food vendors.

Some Filipinos call street food "tusok-tusok", because most street food requires you to get a small stick, stab your chosen street food item, and if you want, dunk it into a container filled with some sort of sauce. "Tusok-tusok" can be roughly translated as "stab-stab", but it's like a light form of stabbing. (Does that even make sense?) 

Just outside of the U.P Shopping Center was a stall that sold street food. It's not a restaurant, but I just wanted to blog about it because "tusok-tusok" and street food has become part of the Philippine streets as long as I can remember. 

First off, the most common street food you can find is called fishballs (my auntie had this). Fishballs aren't even balls, but they're sort of small "chips" of fish, flour and other ingredients. She also had another iconic Philippine street food called kikyam, which is a mixed of vegetables and ground pork in a bean-curd wrapper. Recommended Sauce: Sweet and Sour!

I had shu mai, or as the Filipinos spell it, siomai. Shu Mai are typically pork dumplings, and are served by the Chinese as dim sum. Although not as popular as fishballs and kikyam, there have been some siomai vendors cycling with a steamer filled with the dumplings. I prefer to have them with... Recommended Sauce: Soy Sauce! 

Finally, my sister and my uncle had kwek-kwek, which are basically just quail eggs dipped in a batter with the iconic orange-food-coloring color before being deep-fried. A larger version of this consists of a whole egg dipped in the batter and deep fried, called tokneneng. Recommended Sauce: Chili Oil!

Fun Fact About Euan: I don't eat street food with any kind of sauce. I would eat siomai with soy sauce, but the siomai vendors are so rare, that we just eat the savory pork dumplings in supermarket stalls. 

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Stockholm's Science & Technology Museum

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5 More Days! {More Iconic Philippine Things}

We're boarding a flight to the Philippines on the 16th, and I'm so excited!  Here's a list of more iconic things you (and I) will find in the Philippines.

• Jollibee. Probably the most iconic food chain in the country. It sells everything from fried chicken, to burgers, to pasta, to breakfast... All sorts of stuff. I do like their Breakfast Burger Steak though (it's just basically a breakfast burger patty covered in gravy plus garlic rice).

• Street Food / Street Food Vendors. You will see tons of people cycling with carts of nuts, or "fish-balls" around Manila, or even your own neighbourhood. Prices? Very, very cheap. Don't forget to try kwek-kwek (quail eggs dipped in batter before being deep-fried)! Fish-balls aren't really "ball" shaped though. 

• Tricycles. I think tricycles are those bicycles with three wheels... But if you refer to them here in the Philippines, they mean a method of transportation, perfect when going short distances. They're made by affixing a side-car (to accommodate passengers) with a wheel plus a motorcycle.

• Sari-Sari Stores. Roughly translated, "sari-sari" means "variety". These kind of stores are just basically small spaces (it wouldn't be a surprise if they're even just on a house window) on a house, made for selling a variety of things to the neighbourhood. There are no big chains of these, and these are just mostly for neighbourhood convenience. The owners of these kind of stores are independent (mostly). 

A Typical Outside of a Sari-Sari Store

Picture from Wikipedia

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Travel To The Philippines! Part 2 - FOOD

Before you continue to read this post, make sure you read part one. Read part one here.

So in my previous blog post, I talked about the fun and exciting things you can do in your visit to the Philippines. Now, I shall talk about gastronomy!!

• Pan de Sal & Ensaymada

These are the most iconic Philippine breads. Pan de Sal is a simple, small bun. That's it. Just a small bun. Filipino's like this in the morning with some Dairy Creme (butter) or some Cheez Whiz (cheese spread). Ensaymada, on the other hand, is my favorite Philippine bread. It's basically like a brioche, but it's topped with cheese and sugar. Simply amazing. 

• Kwek-Kwek & Fishball

Now for the Philippine version of street food. Street food vendors typically have a bicycle with a cart that has everything needed for them to cook tons of varieties of street food. Fishball is a typical example. These are basically fish, flour and other stuff mixed together, before being deep-fried onto the cart of the vendor. These are very cheap indeed. 1 piece typically costs 50 Philippine cents, which is about a U.S penny. 

My personal favorite street food is Kwek-Kwek, which is basically a quail egg deep fried with an orange batter. I also like Tokneneng, which applies the same principle, but uses a normal sized egg. 

Tokneneng (image by ph.news.yahoo.com) 

• Batchoy 

Oh my God, Batchoy. One of the most awesome inventions of mankind. It's basically noodles, chicken stock, crushed pork cracklings and beef loin. I have nothing left to say. Batchoy -- best there is. You can buy these in some restaurants (mostly family owned). There are also some hawkers by the sidewalks, but I don't buy this from them... 

• Lumpiang Shanghai 

Another one of those things that you just need to try. It's basically pork mince, carrots and other vegetables mixed together, stuffed inside an edible spring-roll wrapper, wrapped and deep-fried. You can see this in most Philippine restaurants that have a predominant Filipino or Chinese menu. My family once went to this fast-food place in Tagaytay and I ate a whole serving of this. That's about 15 spring rolls as big as your ring-finger. 

• Turon 

This basically has the same method of cooking as Lumpiang Shanghai, but is stuffed with banana slices and is covered with brown rice before deep-fried. I really like this because it's a hot dessert, and is not typical. Recommend buying this from hawkers. If you do purchase some, make sure that there's a lot of brown sugar coating that is not burnt. Turon can be gross if the sugar is burnt. 

• Sago't Gulaman 

You know that craze "boba tea"? This is basically like boba tea, but replace the "boba" things with squares of gelatin. And the liquid is basically some kind of infusion of pandan leaves and brown sugar. I have a family relative from Cavite in the Philippines that makes this and the smell of the pandan infusion and the sugar drags you to the kitchen (literally and figuratively). Do not buy this from the street / street vendors.

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