Sunday, September 16, 2007

New Generation

This the new generation

The new generation of street food.

Yes, it is all I want to talk about here. Street food. A sequel to my entry: Take It To The Street.

I was enjoying much of these "street treasures" and it has come to my attention that there are these new addition to the already large variety of available street food. There are just much to choose from.



Prior to what I've written before, I want to discuss the new addition of items to the street menu. It is no doubt that these food are quite exquisite to me, even though they have been wrapped in mystery and 100% questionable sanitation. I don't really care that much if I do gain diarrhea from them.

Masarap ang bawal. Bawal magkasakit.
Therefore, masarap magkasakit.


And it is great to feast upon disease-causing food.

Definitely, I would trade over these food for Caviar and all other French food that have names that takes quite a stress for the tongue to pronounce

And these are the NEW GENERATION of street food that I've recently "experienced".


Siomai - I love these little bastards. Especially the once sold by ate near the OWWA building in Intramuros. Her cart is isolated from others and is far from the chain of vendors in front of the PC shops. Even so, I would gladly take an extra 50 steps or more from where I buy toknene just to grab her siomai.

I want to siomai love for her siomai. Nyek.

Ah basta. Her siomai (the one that she sells) tastes entirely different from those sold by others.

At masarap din ang fried siomai ni ate
(the one that she sells, which is a FOOD). Not unlike those from Kinse Meal siomais. Her's are just tender and well-cooked. The essence of the meat is greatly defined through careful mixture of seasonings and mixes well with either the sweet and sour sauce or the soy sauce.

*flashback music plays*

I can still remember it. We were so fond of eating at the Kinse Meals.

NOTE: Kinse meals are those meals which consists of 1 order of siomai (4 pieces, P2.50 each) and a cup of rice (P5.00 per cup). Me and my friends greatly patronize the Kinse Meal since it fits well with our budget after spending it all on DotA and we can still purchase a bottle of Pop and they also serve free soup for it. With also the addition of unlimited fried garlic that is so much bitter because of its repeated frying (which you can also witness being done at the side walk near the stores).

We just stopped eating it due to the rumor that a friend of a friend once saw a carcass of a BANGAW floating on the soup. At first, I was in denial since I adore and worship the meal itself. The meal that provides us enough energy to go home after a DotA game.

I denied the chismax to myself. I still ate there a couple of times, with the declination of a sabaw offer from the "store manager". I just stopped eating because I got to experience, first-hand, the anomaly that was surrounding the Kinse Meals. I ordered a Kinse Meal and I ate the uncooked meat that was its content. Ate#2 fried it directly into hot oil (without steaming it first like what the professional Ate#1 would do). I truly had second thoughts that time, if I am to eat that piece of uncooked siomai that only went through a 8 (or about 10)-second dip on boiling oil. The meat is so pinkish and I was truly convinced that it was uncooked.

That was when I decided to stop eating that stuff at that place.

*flashback music stops*

And that it why now I only patronize Ate#1's Scrumptious fried siomais. You can be sure that it's steamed before it was friend and that the meat is jam-packed, compared to that of the Kinse Meal which has the meat na kasing-dami lang ng kuko ng manok. Parang seasoning lang ang amount.


Siomai is definitely one of the delicious street food that I've eaten lately. Now, I only eat at Ate#1's store since it's guaranteed good and cooked. All the other stalls can't imitate the formula.

Back in the old days, you can only get good siomai in various Chinese restaurants such as Wan Chai and Hap Chan in Binondo. But as of now, there's this affordable and good tasting siomai sold at carts. And it tastes even better with ate's special sauce that looks like a Carabao's phlegm.

Chicken Skin - This one's good too. I used to see a lot of carts around that selling this kind of commodity. I'm not fond of buying this stuff very often since I might obtain some skin allergies (may allergy pang nalalaman eh buni, an-an, at hadhad lang naman yun! Sus!).

Dustin tried it out one time and I tasted one and I was really surprised that it was good and cheap too (at about P10.00 a pack, with about 3-5 pieces per pack). It's quite mysterious why Chicken Skin is quite cheap on the streets while my father said that it's quite expensive in restaurants because when you order Chicken Skin, the chef is forced to disposed of the whole chicken since they won't have use for skinless chicken anymore and you would have to pay for the whole chicken.

What a shame.

Another venue wherein I've tasted this chicken stuff is at QC. A pack of deep-fried, chicharon style of chicken skin costs P5.00 per pack (5-6 pieces). After I've tasted that stuff, I immediately wanted to marry the vendor [even though she's a lesbian] so that I can always taste that kind of good chicken stuff for free. I am going to make that cart of chicken stuff our joint property.

Crunchy. Tasty. The taste is undeniably exquisite. And the smell is absolutely astounding. You'll definitely gonna want to eat that stuff everyday up until you're high blood pressure is up to the ceiling and that feathers are growing on your skin.

That's definitely the danger on that food. The skin diseases and the blood pressure. My mother removes the skin on our chicken so I don't get to enjoy that stuff often. Chicken skin contains a very high cholesterol level.

Anyway, it's really good. If I'd ever get that chance to eat this everyday, I'd go for it up until I grow feathers and a beak and cock-a-doodle-doo in the morning.

What's the downside? Unfreshly cooked chicken skin that's almost like bubble gum. Better buy it after it's fried to get that crunchy quality.

Calamares - Of all the new generation of street food, I favor this Calamares almost always [I hope ate siomai won't get jealous]. I think I'm getting addicted. I'm always searching and smelling at possible alleys where they would sell this.

Just like siomai, calamares used to be served at restaurants. I think the calamares-on-carts just recently boomed. They're like farts that suddenly emerge out of nowhere. And now they're bought for P3.00 a piece with no guarantee of where the squid came from [or if it even really is a squid]

The first calamares fry that I've tasted was at the side of our school wherein they first take your order and then they cook it. The process is quite lengthy, since they would dip the calamare piece on a special cream sauce, roll it on some bread crumb breadings and then fry it until golden brown. It takes about 10 minutes for an order to be cooked.

But it is worth the wait. The vendors at Mapua are gone though. Must be the Red Tide attack on their supplier.

I once saw a thick and plump calamares at Raon one time and I said to myself, "MY OH MY! THIS IS CALAMARES HEAVEN!". But then I was wrong. It's been three bites and still no squid. Pure breading. What a joke. I was in a hurry to get the 1 x 2.5 inch calamares piece that the other customer was after. I thought I'm going to be calamares-stick fight with him.

Because of the disappointment, I bought 3 pieces of calamares and paid the vendor P100.00! Ahaha! You bitch! Go get some change!

The other cart was different though. It was pure squid. You can see it's true form. The cooking is solid and has little starch on it. The personality of the squid is complete in his cooking. It is not conceived by pretentious starch. That is true squid at it's plain form.

Just like a knight in shining armor.

It's a mystery to me though, on how easy on the budget the calamares-cart seems to be. Sometimes I imagine if the calamares really is a squid or a piece of a rubber Havaianas, since they have the same chewy texture. Well, I bet Havaianas does taste good too.

After eating the "fake" calamares, I remembered the man that was selling empanadas at the bus on my trip to Batangas. One guy bought an which was advertised as Pork and Chicken empanada to the passengers, and he was complaining and kept on mentioning "Asan na ang pork at chicken? Puro naman kamote at patatas ito.". Poor guy, a victim of false advertisement. I thought that maybe those potatoes were boiled on pork or chicken flavored broth. The vendor didn't mention anything about the empanada having REAL pork and chicken pieces, he just kept on shouting PORK and CHICKEN empanadas. Those empanadas are similar to those hamburgers that they sell, and when you got a bite on it, it's just ham and not a burger patty. What a bunch of misleading jerks!

Chicken Strips - This must be where the chicken meat ends up. You know, the chicken meat on restaurants where they remove the skin on? This must be where they end up, as chicken strips. This is good too. You don't need to go to Jollibee or KFC just to have a piece of chicken strip. Well this can also be considered K.F.C. - Kanto Fried Chicken. This comes for about P2.00-P2.50 a piece with the usual "Universal Vinegar" as it's sauce. It's really good though, pure chicken meat, no bones whatsoever. Just munch and munch away with real chicken goodness on every bite.

Stuff On A Stick - Now this is actually a mystery to me on what this stuff really is. Must be a gall bladder, or kidney, or whatever of a chicken. I haven't actually tasted one of these but they really smell nice when the cart of it is around the place. It's a deep fried stuff that looks like chicken isaw. According to Migs it's chicken bladder and it's the one that gave him amoebiasis or some sort of sickness.

I'm going to try them sometime, for that is the goal of a streetfood fanatic, to try everything that they sell, and everything that's advised by the parents to not eat.

Pancit Canton, HalfLong, Burgers - This was actually the most patronized of all the street food there is for us students in Intramuros, most especially Mapua students. Now these snacks are not the typical street food, but because their stores occupy a very large area of the side street near Mapua, I've included them here.

There's nothing very special about them of course, just your typical instant pancit canton from Lucky Me, or a spicy chicken of Yakisoba, or even a normal HalfLong.

NOTE: The halflong is a term used for an order of half a foot long. Normally when someone orders a hotdog sandwich, they just say half long since they just have footlong hotdogs there so they have to cut it in half, thus the name HalfLong.


All these writing made me hungry. I crave for whatever the street offers.

Kung ano-ano na nga ang naiisip ng mga tao. Basta may breading na harina, ititinda na nila. Baka mamaya niyan eh magtinda na sila ng pritong gulaman o kaya eh pritong pilik-mata ng kambing o kung ano mang klase.

Sana naman eh magtinda sila minsan ng healthy, gaya ng breaded ampalaya or steamed radish skin.

But I do enjoy street food. It's affordable and good-tasting. Just don't question anything about sanitary issues. It's gonna be a debate.

New Generation, new taste. Go and get sick.

7 comments:

legend said...

oh yeah then magsama sama tayo na mayroong one celled organism sa tiyan!!

TanniX said...

Paula Kae - Ahahaha, yeah, tamang-tama yun para saten! Mga adventurous! Mga tunay na matatapang sa larangan ng pagkain!

Duroy said...

Ayun, the dirty foods the average Mapuan eats everyday!!! Nyahahah

Yung ibang schools ba kaya yan?!?!?! Bwahahhaha

luna_sy said...

awts.. hehe mali un link na nilagay mo..:D hehe

pero anyway..

oo tae yun nakainan ko na isaw.. hindi tuloy ako nakapag quiz nun tsaka laki ng pinayat ko dahil dun..tsktsk

TanniX said...

Duroy - hehehe, oo nga eh. sa tingin ko saten lang merong ganun. pero kung tutuusin, katumbas na ng regular meal yung combo meryenda ng cantunan kasi ganun din kamahal, hehe.

Luna - pasensya, nagulat ako at mali nga pala ang link, haha. Kulang ka sa vitamins. Dapat magpurga ka ng vitamins bago ka sumabak sa ganung kainan.

luna_sy said...

yun kikiam daw galing sa lumang fishball daw sabi ng pinsan ko.. tapos yun may pinuntahan daw silang factory kita daw ng pinsan ko na may uod na daw sa gilingan ginagamit pa.. yak!!!

Duroy said...

Kung si Popeye, may spinach para magkaroon ng muscles, tayo naman, kailangan ng instant noodles, half-long saka softdrinks para gumana brain cells natin, bwahahhaha!!!