A Sort of Guide to Filipino Street Food

I once chanced upon a cable travel show with a British dude trying different Filipino street food. He sampled an array of “exotic” local dishes that aren’t for the squeamish.  It makes for compelling television, but that’s not all we’ve got, ya know. So I thought of making my own list of local street food that doesn’t include duck embryos or chicken heads. Because I’m squeamish too. And because I thought it would be fun to list down my favorites :)

Binatog is a snack (or for me a breakfast side dish) of boiled white corn kernels. I like to eat it piping hot with grated coconut and sugar. The binatog vendor rides a bike with two pails. Here I made him look like a giant binatog.

This street food is rare in the city where I live. So the few times that I get I see this dude is pure joy.

Sorbetes is ice cream made from coconut milk. It comes in cheese, chocolate, ube, mango, avocado flavors :) It tastes different from store-bought ice cream, to me it’s more refreshing. The colorful cart is hard to miss in parks. Don’t mind its “dirty ice cream” moniker. I can’t help being a little dirty, it is sold on the streets! kidding.. Just keep an eye on the vendor’s fingers to make sure they don’t touch the cone.

When I was in college, Lumpia was my cheap lunch on-the-go.  It’s quite filling for a fried veggie wrap. The oily goodness isn’t complete without a drizzle of spicy vinegar.

This seriously delicious breakfast/snack is made of warm silken tofu with syrup and tapioca pearls. Anyone who hasn’t tried this is missing half of his life.  When I was a kid, I would wake up to sound of a man shouting”Tahoooooo!!” outside our house. We would run outside to greet the vendor with our empty mugs and pitchers. It’s still my comfort food today.

I think the most enjoyable street food are the skewered ones. I like the dessert variety –  sweet bananas, sticky rice, and sweet potatoes. The tangy and glutinous variety a.k.a. pig & chicken intestines (okay, this might make people squeamish). And the common meat-on-a-stick.

The pig intestine or isaw baboy is a hit-or-miss for me. I only enjoy the ones sold at the parking lot near U.P. Law School, and not from the vendor with the flashy LED sign.  :D

These are considered the special kinds of street food they’re associated with a festive time of the year- Christmas! The bibingka and puto bumbong are rice cakes sold in front of churches during early morning Christmas mass. They are cooked in coal-heated steamers,  creating a smoky flavor gives me warm fuzzy Christmasy feelings inside. They’re so good that I see a lot of mall food stands serve them all-year round, which kinda ruins the effect, I think. But I’d be happy to eat them any day.

National Heroes’ Day

 

Today is National Heroes’ Day in the Philippines. It’s the day we raise our San Miguel bottles to the brave Filipinos who risked their lives to bring about our independence. As I watch the news about what’s happening in other countries: raging wars and human atrocities, I feel all the more grateful for simple things that I get to do like blogging and enjoying this holiday, because those heroes made this place safe for me.

I’m not saying the independence we have in our country is perfect or absolute. But I’d just like to make a little shout-out to my favorite National Hero: Andres Bonifacio, who was one of the first Pinoys to say “Hey, let’s go and organize ourselves on a national level so we can stand up against those bastard colonizers who are killing our people and exploiting our land!” … not verbatim, of course.

He’s the guy at the far end of the table, leading the vow to fight for freedom more than a hundred years ago :P

 

♥ japan ♥

I was lucky enough to visit the Land of the Rising Sun last year :). And boy did the sun rise to lots of pretty, interesting, quirky, unique, and fascinating things that only the people of that land can conceive. Like a cafe where you can pet pretty cats while you drink your coffee.

And this giant teddy bear inside a mall. That’s me hugging it.

I also love their vending machines. They spew out cool stuff like toys, noodle orders, and alcohol.

The food in Japan makes me think of their funny cooking-themed cartoon shows, where the characters cry because the food is so good.I teared up a little when I ate a Mackerel sushi and a bowl of tsukemen. :D~~~

I also loved walking through Kyoto’s Nishiki Market and stuffing my mouth with colorful food. Lots of eye-catching things to take pictures of, like the huge vats of pickled vegetables.

I also got to visit some amazing temples. You won’t see how amazing they are from my drawings though, sorry:P Actual photos or nice drawings maybe.

movie theater

If you stare at the sliding header on oishi.com.ph, you might catch a silly drawing of a movie theater with monsters enjoying their Oishi snacks. :)

Octopi

Here’s something I made for a group exhibit that saw me cramming and completely veering off the theme (Kitchen Trinkets). For some reason, deadlines make me think of giant sleeping cats, bisons, and monocled octopuses (octopi?) in a seaside village :D.

 

manobos

Once upon a time (last month), I made a drawing for an exhibit organized by the Foundation for the Philippine Environment.

My artwork is about the Pantaron Range in Bukidnon. The Manobo tribe living there is now thriving because of the sustainable livelihood training provided by the foundation. The animals living there are smiling too, rather goofily even.

beach

The country is well into the gloomy rainy season, but my mind’s still wandering back to summer days. And beaches. And hot sticky weather. And the warm breeze. And the man I once saw wearing white briefs at a public beach in Pangasinan. He just looked so…. carefree…..

Yet  courteous enough to cover his nuts with a bimpo.

So yeah, I miss summer.

baguio

On a recent quick Baguio trip with friends, we did a LOT of eating. And also riding cabs to move from one cafe to another. Here are some of the yami meals we made lamon…

We also visited the super cool Bencab Museum.

One of my favorite artworks there is a BenCab painting in the Erotica Section, because the girl looks just like my friend. hehe… Well, her face at least :D She also looks a lot like one of the JunYee sculptures…

holy week – wake and egg hunt

I happen to have a set of alcoholic uncles. We went to our home province last Holy Week to attend the wake of the last uncle to die of liver failure and other related complications. :( :( :(

Growing up, I remember my uncles as big burly jolly men who hung out at our qc home and cracked jokes in a dialect that was music to my ears but I couldn’t understand a word of. I didn’t know about alcoholism back then. In hindsight, they did kinda speak a little slurred..

At the wake, my cousin joked that now they’re probably laughing and cracking open a few Tanduay bottles to celebrate their reunion.

On Easter Sunday, my niece and nephew got to participate in their first Easter Egg Hunt. They were in the toddler cluster, but some of the eggs were hidden so well I didn’t think any toddler could reach or find them. Obviously, the adults were there to help and to grab that chance to act like kids again.

hk

Alo! This is my nth attempt at blogging. I’ve always wanted a little space online to babble and maybe write about food and stuff.

So…

Today I am posting about a recent Hong Kong trip.:D Highlights include trying Hong Kong french toast at a quaint Cha Chan Teng (tea café) called Mido Cafe. That plate with the two pieces of chewy butter-fried bread made us forget our excitement about the day’s Disneyland plans. It was simply the happiest place on earth at that moment.

Another highlight was the night we decided to have our fill of Tsing Tao pints and oyster omelettes at a side street eatery. We got a little tipsy and started debating about chop sticks and the essence of advertising like the dorks and posers that we are.. hehe.. An occasional Porsche or Ferrari would park in front of the garbage heap growing beside us. Fun times :P

The coolest highlight was getting to see Andy Warhol’s exhibit at the Hong Kong Museum of Art. Ermygerd it was soo amazing! His prints were huge! We weren’t allowed to take pictures of the soup cans and Marilyn Monroes. So I doordled my own version…