Popular and Famous Street Foods in the Philippines

Popular and Famous Street Foods in the Philippines

Trying street foods in the Philippines is very fun, challenging and saves some of your budget. Street foods are mostly spotted on schools, bus or jeep terminals,
church, and parks. Prices of these street foods cannot go beyond 20 pesos or approximately 0.50 US dollars.

Camote Cue or deep fried sweet potato and
Banana Cue or deep fried saba or saging

They are one of the popular street foods in the Philippines wherein the banana or sliced sweet potatp is coated with caramelized brown sugar and skewered in a bamboo stick. Some offers like toron also. Banana that are wrapped with a lumpia wrapper. These are mostly prepared in the late afternoon for the merienda or snacks.

Maruya or Banana Fritters or pinaypay
They dip the sliced bananas into a mix of flour and egg and then deep fry them. After frying, they dip it into sugar.

Ginanggang
Banana on stick that is grilled in charcoal. It is then brushed with margarine and sugar.

Fish Balls, Squid Balls, Tempura and Chicken Balls
These can be easily be found in the streets and they are usually on a push cart and can be seen mostly near schools. Fish balls are made from finely pulverized cuttlefish meat or Pollock and they are formed in flat shape. Other variations now include the squid balls and chicken balls. They are deep fried and you can have a preference of their sauce. There is sweet and sour sauce and hot and spicy vinegar sauce.

Kwek Kwek and Tokneneng
Kwek kwek are quail boiled eggs dipped on orange batter while tokneneng are chicken or duck boiled eggs. Thery are deep fried until crispy. Same with fish balls, squid balls and chicken balls, they can be easily seen in the streets near schools.

Kikiam
It came from the Chinese food quekiam. It is made of ground pork and vegetables that is wrapped in bean curd sheets. It is cooked deep fried and can be paired with a sauce.

Calamares
Breaded squid rings that are deep fried. This is very famous to Filipinos since they use it for pulutan or dry finger food that accompany alcohol drinks.

Siomai
Steamed dumplings made of pork, beef or shrimp.

Taho
Taho is bean curd made of soft silken tofu. It is topped with arnibal or sweet syrup or caramelized or liquefied brown or raw sugar with sago or tapioca pearls.

Halo – Halo or “mix of many things” or assortment
It is a mixed shaved of ice, evaporated or condensed milk, beans, gulaman, flakes, variety of fruits, nata de coco, etc. It is one of the Filipinos favourite desserts especially during hot days in summer. Some topped it with leche flan, ube jam and ice cream.

Mais con Yelo
Mix of sweet corn, milk, sugar and shaved ice

Binatog
Made up of steamed white corn kernels mixed with milk, shredded coconut with a sprinkle of sugar or salt.

Iskrambol
Shaved or crushed ice mix with caramelized brown sugar, gulaman, topped with milk powder or condensed milk and chocolate syrup. They are also mixed with artificial color to have variety of color. Original flavor is strawberry. This is very famous and popular to Filipino kids.

Dirty Ice Cream or Sorbetes
It is sometimes called as sorbets and has been nicknamed “dirty ice cream”. These are home-made ice creams with different flavours (ube or purple yam, queso or cheese, langka or jackfruit, strawberry, buko or macapuno or coconut, vanilla, chocolate) that have been sold by street vendors with colourful carts.

Peanuts or Mani
There are variety of options that you can choose. There are boiled, raw, skinless, spicy peanuts, cashew nuts, castanas or chestnuts.

Green Mango or Manggang Hilaw
It is best paired with bagoong or shrimp paste. Some use salt.

Mais or Corn
Boiled sweet corn seasoned with salt, butter or margarine.

Arroz Caldo and Goto
Arroz Caldo are rice porridge like Chinese congee mixed with ginger and herbs, chicken and egg. Goto has same mixture but with beef tripe.

Batchoy
Batchoy is made up of noodle soup with chicken meat or pork innards mixed with vegetables and pork crakclings or chicharon.

Barbecue
Barbecue has variety of styles. Most of them are marinated chicken or pork stew and then grilled on hot charcoal.
Other variations are:
isaw or IUD (Intra-Uterine Device) or chicken intestines,
adidas or chicken feet,
Betamax or dried chicken or pork blood,
ulo ng manok or helmet or chicken head,
pwet ng manok or chicken ass,
balat ng baboy or barbecue pig skin,
tenga ng baboy or grilled pig ears or nicknamed as Walkman,
leeg ng manok or grilled chicken neck,
balun-balunan or grilled chicken gizzards,
atay ng manok or grilled chicken liver,
butse or deep fried crop of chicken.

Sisig
Made up of mixed roasted pig’s head, chicken liver, onions, chili, best paired with egg and calamansi and mostly served on a hot plate.

Chicharon bulaklak
Pork omentum boiled that is seasoned and deep fried

Balut
Balut are hard boiled 3 week old duck egg. The looks of it are not quite good since the nearly formed embryo can be seen. However, balut are very high in protein and aphrodisiac. Proper way of eating balut is to suck the amniotic fluid before peeling it off. It is best toeat the chick and yolk with vinegar and salt.