Top 15 Filipino Street Foods for the Brave Heart

Filipino Street Foods

If you ever find yourself lost in the avenues and corners of the Philippines, don’t miss out on some of the country’s most exceptional and unique dishes! 

Filipinos are known for their adventurous and experimental inclinations when it comes to eating, leading to the innovation of a cuisine that has developed that is not without its critics. For some, Filipino food is a staple they never thought they needed, but others turn the other way as it’s not their cup of tea. Street cuisine in the Philippines, where you can get such delights as grilled chicken intestines and blood cubes, has made exotic Filipino food popular. Since poverty is prevalent in the Philippines, people avoid wasting food or anything that might be used as food.

These exotic dishes are particularly popular among local residents and foreign visitors in search of their next gastronomic adventure. A plethora of weird recipes may be created using what is on hand, whether from the natural world or what else is left out after meat has been used. That’s why don’t be shocked if you’re invited to sit at the table or given a sample of fried crickets when you dine out in the Philippines. If you think about it, these foods are more environmentally and ethically friendly than chicken, hogs, or beef.

Social media has made it easier for individuals to learn about and enjoy more peculiar and exotic food products when visiting a new place. The Philippines must be one culinary stop you need to explore. If you’re up for the challenge, let’s see what these adventurous street meals offer our curious stomachs!

‘Kwek Kwek,’ a popular street snack in the Philippines, is prepared with deep-fried hard-boiled quail eggs wrapped in a delicious orange batter. Vinegar and a special sauce are often used as dips for this dish. Among Filipinos, it’s a beloved snack that’s economical, kid-friendly, and quite addictive!

Popular Filipino street food, walkmans are pig’s ears that have been sliced up, skewered, and then grilled. The name comes from the legendary rise of walkmans and pop culture in the country. Even though it’s chewy and harsh, street merchants love it. During the 1980s, Filipinos used the term “Walkman” to refer to Sony’s famous device, and the moniker stuck. A variant of the street Walkman is the restaurant sisig, a mix of chopped pig ears, snout, liver, jowls, onions, and spices served on a sizzling dish.

Deep-frying is a popular cooking method in the Philippines, and virtually anything may be deep-fried. Chicken intestines are a popular delicacy in the Philippines, where they are deep-fried. When the intestines are chopped into bite-sized pieces, the meal takes on the appearance of a “flower,” thus the name “bulaklak” in Filipino. Chicharon bulaklak is often served with a spicy vinegar sauce, as is customary in the Philippines, while eating deep-fried food.

Dynamite is deep-fried green finger chilies packed with processed cheese and wrapped in a spring roll wrapper, a relatively recent addition to the Filipino street food lineup. The stem is frequently left on, making them seem like dynamite sticks. The cheese and the chilies are softened by the crunchiness of the tortilla covering.

Isaw, a popular street meal in the Philippines, is made by grilling pig or chicken intestines. Inihaw, or in English, we call it “grilled or barbecued,” which is what it resembles. The intestines are cleaned, twisted inside out, cleaned a second time or more, and then boiled, grilled, or roasted on sticks. In the Philippines, this is one of the most popular and sought-after street foods. This meal pairs nicely with booze and is well-known for being the finest value-for-money appetizer.

Cooked blood cakes, known as Betamax or DVD, are another food with an unusual name. The name given to the now-defunct video cassettes was derived from the shape of cakes. After being molded into spherical pucks, the blood cubes were given the new moniker DVD or VCD, which referred to the video disks. Soup lovers may enjoy these cubes in any shape since they aren’t only good in soup. Grilling provides them with a unique taste and texture that they don’t get from other types of barbecued meats.

Chicken feet are a common ingredient in Asian cuisine and may be found in various cookbooks. Chicken feet are a popular street dish in Manila, which may be found on the sidewalks. Skin and tendons make up the bulk of the edible meat in this portion of the chicken, yet it’s still known locally as an appetizer. Preparing a tasty chicken foot meal is not as simple as it sounds. The chicken feet should be soft and intact at the same time but not mushy. You can simply nibble around the chicken and still enjoy it.

As a distinctive Filipino delicacy, Salagubang, also known as June Bugs or May Beetles, may be found abundantly in Nueva Ecija. It has a crunchy exterior but a mushy, meaty inside when you bite into it. This strange Filipino dish is the finest when served as appetizers at drinking parties.

Salagubang is traditionally prepared the same way as adobo, which they call Abal-abal, and is gaining popularity nationwide.

If Salagubang (Beetle) is already a treat, it’s not unexpected that Uok is also one. The larvae of this beetle dwell on dead coconut logs and are sold as a delicacy on the streets of Rizal province in the Philippines. Like Salagubang, Adobong Uok is another favorite method of savoring this delectable dish. Once the novelty of eating beetle larvae wears off, the indigenous people claim that the texture and flavor of these nymphs are rather satisfying. Uok is also an excellent source of protein, a plus we can never scoff about.

As you know, nothing is ever wasted in Filipino cuisine. Tuslob-buwa, a meal of pig’s brain and liver boiled together in soy sauce and spices, is a popular Cebu delicacy among hungry students and employees. The combination of pig brain and liver may not be to everyone’s taste, but it’s actually rather delicious. With the accompanying rice, it makes for an excellent mid-afternoon snack.

The name, which basically means “dip in bubbles,” alludes to the nature of this meal and how to best consume it. Put the salty, oily chunks in your mouth by dipping your puso, or “hanging rice” (cooked rice wrapped in coconut or pandan leaves), into this thick, frothy soup. Refreshing sodas like Coke, Sprite, and Mountain Dew are typical choices for after-dinner drinks.

Filipinos consume chicken in many forms and stages, making it the most popular meat in the country. It is exactly what it sounds like: day-old chicks on barbecue sticks, roasted and then basted in a local barbecue sauce. The chicks have a reddish tint from the sauce. Chicken’s bones are quite delicate, and the grilling softens them even more. No bones or organs are left behind when you consume a whole chicken.

Barbecuing doesn’t waste any of the chicken’s organs, even the head, which is dubbed a “helmet” in Filipino street food parlance. The chicken head contains higher fat deposits beneath the skin than the chicken feet. You may remove the brain and other internal organs by breaking the skull open and sucking them out.

In the Philippines, a wide variety of unusual dishes are available for purchase on their own or as part of a larger meal. Ilocos, however, is most known as a dish that may be found on every restaurant’s menu. Caviar prepared from ant eggs, boiled with garlic, is known as Abuos in the region. Red ants are often seen in the dish. This is the most common kind of ant. The meal is full of flavor with a somewhat chewy and slightly crispy texture.

It is widely known that kamaru, or mole crickets, eat rice grains and leaves in a rice field. Many Filipinos like eating these protein-and B-rich bugs! There is nothing particularly unpleasant about the taste of these crickets, and they are quite inexpensive: a kilogram of them costs approximately $1. Even though over two billion people on the planet consume insects regularly, convincing Westerners to eat these insects is quite impossible. 

Balut is regarded as one of the country’s first unusual cuisine delights. Founded in Chinese culture, Balut has been around for about 200 years. What was formerly considered a fine dining experience is now paired with a cold beer. It is a cooked embryo grown for 14–21 days before being eaten straight from its shell. Those courageous enough to try the Filipino delicacy of balut will note that it’s still very hot when the egg is presented.

Before serving, Balut is cooked the same way as hard-boiled eggs, except that it is not refrigerated. Rather than being boiled for 20-30 minutes, the fertilized duck egg is boiled and consumed as soon as it achieves the desired consistency. That might be because they don’t want anybody to think about what they’re eating and alter their minds. Also, there is intense competition for Balut, with vendors seen hawking their wares to stranded motorists in the chaotic Filipino traffic. 

The Takeaway

Many Filipinos are thrifty folks who have learned to produce the finest food possible with what they have on hand. As with everything else, the more pieces you can utilize, the less costly your daily life becomes when you practice frugal eating. Having a tight budget is a virtue, and the Filipinos’ penchant for it is something the world appreciates.