UNIQUE Filipino Street Food Tour in MANILA, PHILIPPINES

Arriving in a new city can be intimidating for an outsider. How do you get to know a city's people and their culture? For us, food is always the best place to start. It's a doorway into an unfamiliar place. This is Gian. He's the highest rated food guide in Manila, and he's going to introduce us to some Filipino street food classics, as well as some flavors that will challenge even the most adventurous of palates. Indian and Malay or Muslim traders have been sailing all over the South Pacific, basically. And one of the things that they've brought here to the Philippines through the centuries is their food culture. So what you know as shumai in Chinese cuisine is called shumai here in the Philippines, which is basically steamed dumplings. And then we're pairing it with what we call gulaman. Now gulaman is a classic, classic street drink here in the Philippines. It's basically a sugar syrup, sugar caramel, basically, with ice water and banana essence. It's that banana essence. When you're a kid and you would have a banana popsicle on a hot day, it's got that flavor. Really sweet, too. This almost tastes like a flat Dr. Pepper or something. It's not quite Dr. Pepper, but it's something very similar to that there. This is pork and shrimp shumai. I'm supposed to put some soy sauce on it. I like salty, so let's do that. It's very similar to the Chinese dim sum, the shumai. It's got some calamansi and chili on top. All right, here we go. My turn. All right. The pork and shrimp together, he described it as Filipino surf and turf, which I love. And then the calamansi just adds this gorgeous acidity to it. Oh, these are really tasty. You know, I'm going to talk about the chilies right off the bat. They add a beautiful little touch to them. Thank you. So this afternoon, we're going to be trying cassava two ways. One is called Pichi Pichi and the other is cassava cake. So fairly similar in mouthfeel, but definitely different in flavor and texture. So the Pichi Pichi is treated with lye water. So if you're familiar with lye water, it's basically water that they filter through. What's that mineral? Calcium. So to a certain degree, it kind of like strips off the starch from starchy things and it makes it more jelly-like. So that's what the Pichi Pichi will feel like when you first try it. The other one dish that we're going to be having made from cassava, which is cassava cake. Think of it kind of like a chewy cheesy cheesecake with coconut in it. So two awesome dishes that we'll be trying later on after we eat up the mystery grilled meats first. So what we're going to do is we're going to play a sort of game this afternoon. All right. I'm going to order you up some mystery meats on a skewer. They're going to grill it to perfection. Then you're going to eat it. Then I'll let you know what it is. All right. Sounds good? Done. All right. So John is playing coy with us and will not tell us what this is. He says it's chicken isao. So we know it's from a chicken. I can kind of tell by looking and honestly, it kind of scares me. I'm not huge on organ meats, but John says I got to try it. All right. You guys know I'm not as screamers as Angie is. So here we go. How am I going to eat five sticks of this? But it's definitely not as intimidating as I thought it was. You get this perfect little smokiness from the grill on it. These are fantastic. John says this is called Walkman. He won't tell me exactly what it is again. But I have guesses because for a Walkman, I'm guessing it's either pig feet or ears. Let's find out. Is that ears? Well, you already took a bite, so I can let you know. Yes, it's pig ears. That's good. But you're chewing on that cartilage. I haven't tasted anything else on a piece of pork that I did not like. And these are fantastic. This one is called Balunan. Still have no idea what it is. It's chicken something. Kind of just tastes like barbecue chicken, though. Just a different texture. I have no idea. All right. So that is chicken gizzard. You guys know I'm not a fan of the organ meats. It's all in my head. But here we go. Chicken gizzards. I've had gizzards before, so it's not that big a deal. Where does it thrive, though, based on your other chicken gizzard experiences? A lot more chewy than what I've had before. A hot dog. So this is like the hot dog without the snap. It's not a sausage. It has no snap, right? So this is like the kiddie hot dog that you grew up eating. A grilled version is one of the more typical ones growing up. And one way you had this when you were a kid is they put the marshmallow in between the hot dog. Oh, hot dog s'mores. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or what they call that chunks of canned pineapple as well. So they were like they were of the common sighted birthday parties here in the Philippines. Back in the 90s and all that. Funny enough, taste ads last came out a couple of days ago ranking this as one of the worst foods in the world. Let me know what you think. All right. Let's see if this is actually the worst hot dog. Worst food in the world. It's definitely not the worst. Yeah. I can see that it's got like that childhood nostalgia, you know what I mean? If you're from back home, this is like an Oscar Mayer wiener. Just like psychedelic colored Oscar Mayer wiener. Not even remotely close. Is it something I'm going to go out and seek every day that I go out? No, but yeah, I can do that. John says that this is his least favorite, but he says it's his wife's most favorite. It's called pork isaw. Since we've already had chicken isaw, I think I have an inkling what this is. So let's give it a shot. Here we go. See, right? I'm still not crazy about it, but I like the pork better than the chicken. That's tasty. This is a sweet. It's called pichi pichi, and it is covered with grated cheese, which is right up my alley. Also, it's made of cassava, and I was expecting it to be cakey, but look, it's like jiggly and like jelly-ish. So I'm looking forward to trying this. How to describe that? I'm not a big fan of like jelly things, but this has an entirely different consistency from what you would expect from something that jiggles like that. And then the cheese on top. It's very mild, and it's very creamy, but this is really good. All right, so the next one is a cassava cake. The only difference between this and the pichi pichi is this one has coconut. The pichi pichi does not. Let's try it. The cheese on that. I've had a lot of cassava cake in my life, and I love it. The cheese is a different touch on that. This is really good. So this is called kwek kwek. It's basically an oiled quail egg, pre-shelled, and then they just cover it in batter and eat it. So it can be stuffed with either meats or vegetables and all that. This one in particular is lumpiang toge, which is basically mung bean sprouts. Mung bean sprouts, all right. So historically, it's eaten with spicy vinegar. All right. So let me add a little bit. Dig in. All right. Spicy vinegar, that sounds good. Deep fried mung beans? Yes. Yeah. What's the wrapper made of? Uh, wheat. Spicy vinegar. All right. So the filling reminds you of like a takeout style Chinese egg roll. But the outside is so crispy. And then what's different is that the spicy vinegar, like that acidity really kind of offsets like the greasiness of the deep fried on the outside. It makes it really, really tasty. The lumpiang is delicious. Here's something that I gotta say. I was a little concerned coming to the Philippines with all the vinegar. They've done it so well. It works perfectly with everything that they're doing here. It's fantastic. Basically soy sauce based with sugar. And then it's sticky because of cornstarch. So you add that on top. Once again, a nice sprinkling of the spiced vinegar. And then yeah, dig in. This one you'll do next after that. This is the food with the cutest name we've had since we've been on this tour. Quick quick. That's a deep fried quail egg. Battered and deep fried. So you've got like that creamy yolk in the middle and then like the fattiness from the from the deep frying on the outside. Tasty stuff. That's awesome. Surely you can eat a dozen of these things. I'm taking the big one. John's being tricky again. He's not telling me what this is. He says chicken nugget. What's it called? Robin. All right, let's go. Right? All right. This is the first one where John has been being tricky with me and I'm 100% on board. That's delicious. What is it? Chicken stomach. Tasty. Tasty deep fried chicken stomach though. Here we go. Chicken stomach. That's awesome. That is unbelievable. New lunch spot. I'm gonna come down here tomorrow and just order everything. Oh yeah, that's good. So this is a banana turon. Now turon is an iconic kiddie snack here in the Philippines. Like I kid you not, if you grew up studying in the Philippines, these were probably sold in your elementary school or right around your elementary school. It's a different species of banana than you're used to. So it's not the cavendish one. We call it a sabah banana. They're short and dumpy and fat. And they're more starchy. Very similar to plantains I would say. So here we consider them a cooking banana. While you can still eat them raw, we prefer to cook them. It's like a banana caramel egg roll. So more modern ways to eat that now is like with, what's that white ice cream? Vanilla ice cream. Oh yeah. I've seen versions wherein they put peanut butter with the banana or Nutella with the banana or dulce de leche. Oh like look at that caramelized pieces on the outside and then like creamy sweet banana on the inside. This is my favorite. Turon you said? Turon. I have to say it right. It sticks to your teeth. Oh that's so good. It's all stuck to my teeth. But that's tasty. Historically it's just a white fluffy rice cake. Just sweet. That's about it. But this particular store, they do four flavors. This is ube which is purple yam which grows endemically here in the Philippines. Pandan is the green one over here. You're familiar with it. It's kind of like the vanilla of Southeast Asia. Yeah that's true. Right? The brown one is muscovado sugar which is a less processed form of sugar. And the yellow one, I told you you're gonna see it more and more often, cheese in a sweet pastry, right? Good. So historically these were eaten as is or paired with a blood stew here in the Philippines. But in this particular neighborhood where we are at, there's no blood stew available. So I pair this with sisig which is one of the things that we'll be trying as well. We pair this with sisig. Interesting. All right. And it's not a Filipino thing. It's a Jian thing. It's my pairing. Yeah yeah yeah. Filipinos don't do it. So I'm trying to make it a thing. Okay. Because it works. You're trying to make sisig and puto happen. Yeah yeah yeah. Okay. We're trying three different things in this stall. This first one is called pinapaitan which, rough translation into English means to be made bitter. This has an ingredient that not many culture in the world eats. So I jokingly say once you try the soup you eat an ingredient that makes that puts you in the one percent of the human population. And then this other one is the sisig which we will pair with the puto later on. So once again, we're in the Philippines. That is not a bad word. So this is beef and then this one is pork. All right. So let's start with the soup first. It's a combination of vinegar, calamansi, bit of tamarind. I really really like the broth. Oh man. Okay. Here we go. Trying a chunk. All right. So you've tried it already so I can tell you what it is. So pinapaitan is basically everything inside a cow. Roten egg. So literally everything inside a cow. I got like some ironiness right. So yeah that was probably a little piece of liver. Yep. The weirdest ingredient there that I told you earlier that not many cultures in the world historically like alive or dead cultures eat it is biles. Right. So if you hunt or if you butcher, one of the things that they teach you early on is do not nick the bile sack because it will ruin the entire animal right. You can't eat it anymore because it makes it so bitter. What we do here is we just add a little bit of bile. Just enough to give it that very complex flavor profile. You do know that. You've had that in the back of your throat after a night of drinking right? Yeah. Bitter that's creating that much the bitterness to it. Is that the bile that's actually? Really? That is unlike anything I've ever eaten in my life. All right. He hasn't told me what this is but I know it's tried. It's got to be. So let's go for it. I'm scared of is what Angela got a hold of which I think I might have right here. And that's liver. And if it's beef liver I know I'm not a fan of it. That's not liver. I have no idea what that was. That is actually that's the tripe. The first ones you had were probably pieces of either the lungs or the intestines. The long skinny piece? Or intestines. Okay. All right we're gonna go with something else here. I don't know what it is. But that's a tripe. That's a small cow's tripe. It's a bit chewy but it's got everything. It has really good flavor to it. This is kind of freaking me out that the little bit of bitterness that's on the soup is the bile. But it's really good. All right you guys go ahead and do your thing. I'm gonna sit here and eat my soup. This is sisig. Now it's one of the most famous Filipino dishes. It's fairly young. A couple of decades I'd say. Maybe 40-50 years old. It was invented by a lady called Alim Lu Sing. And she would get the pig heads that the U.S. Army bases that used to be in the Philippines that they wouldn't use. So either they threw it away, gave it away or sold it for super super cheap. She would get the pig heads and she would boil them and then roast them a bit. And then deep fry them. After she peeled all the whatever she could get. The mask. We call it maskara or mask literally from the skull of the pig right. And then after being deep fried, chop it up real fine. Onion, salt, pepper, bit of sugar, margarine or butter. And then put it on a sizzling plate. And it became such a hit that it spread like wildfire over the Philippines. Now since there's far less pig head meat available than pork belly. Most restaurants that you go to sisig will be made primarily of pork belly nowadays. For something that started off as being made from offcuts. Now you pay more to get the original pig head sisig. But it's still tasty even if it's made from the pork belly. So yeah it's crunchy, it's porky, it's tasty. Try it as is first. I love those crunchy little bits of like crisp pork. What is that? It's pork skin, pork fat, ground up pork. Is this actual pork face? No no no it's pork belly. I'm disappointed. Now historically it was created to be paired with alcohol right? Or I bet it was so delicious a lot of Filipinos were like, I bet you that would go great with rice. So it's like a meal that you pair with rice nowadays. But a thing that I do, so it's not a Filipino thing, it's a Gian thing. Is I pair it with puto. Putong pig. So Gian is trying to make sisig and puto happen as a combo meal. Let's give it a shot. Gian is on to something. Yeah the little bit of sweetness and then like the crunchiness and the savoriness and the meatiness. Yeah it's like like cornbread and chili almost you know. But like a completely Filipino style. Delicious. Okay of all the research we did here in the Philippines, the one thing I was, one of the things, there's one other one that I'm really looking forward to. But this is one of the dishes that I've really been looking forward to try and that is this sisig. So just on its own here. Come on that is so good. All right so we're going to try a pairing here now. And this is the sugar puto and the sisig. Actually works. You get the fatty little pork that's going along with it. The oiliness that's happening within the sisig here. Then you get the little soft cakiness that's happening with the puto. And it all mixes perfectly. Oh that is good. All right I think this food tour may have really gone off the rails now. This is a first on our food tours. John has introduced us to a local beer, Red Horse. And as you can see we're enjoying it. So growing up in the Philippines, your dad would have done an honest day's work right. Come home have dinner with the family and all that. And of course to relax and de-stress he would have a couple of beers after dinner right. And then late into the night maybe not too late like 10, 11, 12. He starts becoming peckish right. So there would be these people men or women with wicker baskets walking around your neighborhood just shouting balut and all that. So one of the typical things that they had would be boiled peanuts, boiled quail eggs, balut and penoy. Now penoy is these ones with marks. Basically it's an unfertilized egg. Okay. If we were to open this up it would straight up look like a boiled egg. Okay. We don't want that. We want the one with a Kinder Surprise inside. So this is a balut. All right. So a balut is a fertilized duck egg. It takes 31 days to hatch a duck egg. Okay. We cook it right around between 15 to 18 days old. So you have a little bit of development here. So what you do is you try to feel where the empty space is. There has to be like a space somewhere here. If you can't feel it you put it close to a light. And you're looking for... Is that what that light is for? Yep. There you go. Can you see that? There's a slight... Yeah, right. There's a... You know there's an empty space here, right? So you get your balut. You smack it. Okay now there's a dimple. You know that it's the empty spot. Peel it open. It's a boiled egg. That's egg yolk, right? All right. There's a little bit of film. So there's the liquid inside now. All right. You get a pinch of salt. Pinch of salt right there. Salt, salt helps. Yeah, okay. Most people add like a bit of spiced vinegar as well. I'm not a fan of spiced vinegar. I'm good with just the salt. And bottoms up. There is a soup inside that's very much like a chicken roll. You open up more. A bit more salt. More salt, okay. And then just take a bite. Tastes like egg. So I'm gonna dig in a little bit deeper, right? So that's more of the egg yolk. I've eaten half of the baby duck now. So I've eaten everything that's soft. What you're left with inside, as you'll see, that is the egg white. Now when eggs develop, the egg white becomes very hard. If you open this up and just bring out the egg white. Most people don't eat the egg white anymore. Primarily because it's hard. This is the egg white. Now, have you ever chewed an eraser when you were a kid? Oh yeah. Right? It feels exactly like an eraser. Oh, it's very hard. Right? Yeah, it's so hard. Yeah. I mean the actual texture is like an eraser. You could technically eat it because the protein is not my thing. I don't like it. So I'm good. Your turn. If it tastes like chicken broth, you'll owe me a drink. I owe you a drink. Right? It tastes just like chicken broth. Make sure you get all the liquid. Okay. See? Not too scary, right? It's chicken soup. Yep. Okay. All right. Okay. Continue peeling it until half. All right. Oh, John. Yeah, more salt. Oh, stop laughing. Oh, you can do it, boo. Oh, okay. So do I bite it? Yep, take a bite. Take a bite. Yep. All right. Go for it, boo. It tastes like a boiled egg. Right? Right. Now you get your finger and you just hook the rest of it into your mouth. It tastes like a boiled egg. Right? Are you trying to convince yourself of that? It tastes like a boiled egg. All right. Yeah. And by the looks of it, you already have like half of the baby duck in your mouth. All right. Have you eaten duck? Have you eaten duck eggs? Yes. Have you eaten foie gras? I mean. I've eaten all those things, yes. This is full circle now. Man, I don't know why. Get your finger in there, boo. Go for it. OK. Shit. Well, OK. Did you really give up? Yeah. No, no, no, no. I consider that a pass. She ate half the egg. She drank all the soup. That's a pass. There we go. You see the dimple? I'm a little surprised how warm it is. Yeah. There you go. Ooh, lots of soup in yours. I got a soupy one. Yeah. It's all running down my hand. Salt. All right, soup. Here we go. Maybe a little bit too much salt. I put too much salt on it. But yeah, it does taste like a chicken soup. Yep. See, that's the eyeball of the duck. I can see it. All right, here we go. A little bit of salt. Right? Another moment at all. Tastes just like a boiled egg. Try just bite into the egg white just so you know what texture I'm telling you about. It's literally like chewing. That you don't like? Yeah, yeah. It's like chewing on an eraser. You know, those like big erasers when you're in elementary school. Like chewing on an eraser. Yep. Can you actually bite into it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can, you can. Like an eraser. You can bite into every average eraser. It's just like an eraser. Right? I'm about to do it. Yeah. So that's basically. I'm about to do it. Yeah, that's what, that's the, what's left over from the, the egg whites. They become that tough. It's basically pure protein. Next week, we continue exploring Filipino food by trying some of the country's most famous food chains here in Manila. And nope, it's not Jollibee. Did we visit your favorite? Hit that subscribe button so you don't miss our ratings of Filipino favorite food franchises.