Local Expert
Knox Balbastro
Having grown up outside the Philippines, Knox was raised on a diet of Macaulay Culkin movies, Barbie dreams, and the sounds of MTV. When she returned to the Philippines during her teens, she began to…
Having grown up outside the Philippines, Knox was raised on a diet of Macaulay Culkin movies, Barbie dreams, and the sounds of MTV. When she returned to the Philippines during her teens, she began to seek out a distinctly Pinoy culture. So far, she loves what she’s seeing. Manila for her is a fertile ground for art, music, fashion, and fun. Living in a little known, third world country definitely has its perks. Adventures are affordable and discovery doesn’t come in the usual package.
Her best advice for travellers new to the Philippines is to go out on the streets where faces, traffic, and landscape can create a collage of experiences that’s gritty and real.
Knox is a 24 year-old dreamer who also happens to be an advertising copywriter. She loves to travel and dreams of bag packing throughout the entire Philippine Archipelago. She hopes that through this blog, people from all over the world will find a reason to drop by.
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How to be a Street Epicurean: Part 2
Street Epicure in Training:
1. Manggang hilaw: Small green mangoes that are unripe and extremely sour. It’s peeled, cut up, and bagged. The fun comes when you counter the sourness with salted shrimp paste or rock salt.
2. Kwek-kwek: Soft-boiled quail eggs dipped in bright orange batter. It only looks funny, but it’s quite normal really.
3. Tokneneng: Enlarged kwek-kwek! Instead of quail, they use chicken eggs but the cooking process is the same. Be careful, it can be quite a mouthful.
4. Taho: This is a delightful warm gelatinous soup usually peddled around in the morning. It’s made of the soft bean curd, brown sugar syrup, and soft tapioca pearls. It looks rather strange and especially unappetizing when mixed together. However, just take one sip of this gooey creation it’ll make you melt in sheer yumminess.
Official Street Epicure:
1. Isaw: Basically, these are chicken or pork intestines. Cleaned, dried out, and then skewered like a kebab and grilled. Dip in vinegar and enjoy.
2. Betamax: This is dried chicken blood that’s roasted and served in small cubes. Because of the way it’s sliced it resembles a Betamax tape. That’s how it got its name!
3. Helmet: Grilled chicken heads. Yes, it’s the whole head.
4. Adidas: Grilled chicken feet.
5. One Day Old: The name says it all. It’s a deep-fried day old chick. (As if we didn’t torture the chickens enough. We had to go after their babies too!)
6. Balut: The street food that was featured as a dare on Fear Factor is quite commonplace in Manila. It’s an aborted poultry egg fetus. These fertilized duck or chicken eggs develop until the embryo reaches a preset size. Then it is boiled. I remember eating Balut when I was a young child when I didn’t question what my parents fed me. Now I know better so I just suck out the juices, admittedly a very satisfying and tasty experience.
7. Penoy: It’s like balut except without the fetus.
That ends my street food list. If you’ve considered anything on the Official Street Epicure list than hats off to you and happy eating!