Philippine Street Foods: Food Cart Edition

If you visit the Philippines, you might have noticed that in the city, starting at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, whichever street you turn to has its own food cart attached as a sidecar to a motorcycle/bicycle. This is the most basic variety of streetfood namely "Tusok-Tusok" which translates to "poke-poke" because you basically poke the fried food with a thin bamboo stick, then dip it in the sweet and sour sauce before you eat it. 

 

Here are the top picks for food cart street foods in the Philippines:

 

1.Kwek-Kwek

Kwek Kwek is a boiled quailed egg coated with an orange batter and deep-fried until the batter is crispy. It might look similar to the other "tusok-tusok" because they are mostly round-shaped, but kwek-kwek is more firm considering that there is an egg inside. 

 

2. Fishball

This round-shaped food is a meatball-like product made from fish meat. It is a fried food containing fish that is formed into a ball and deep-fried with or without a light batter coating on the outside.

 

3. Kikiam

Kikiam is a sausage-like dish that has different varieties all over Southeast Asia. It was adopted right away ever since it was introduced in the Philippines. 

 

4. Squid balls

They are cooked balls of puréed squid, often served as part of a Dim Sum selection. The raw squid is puréed, mixed with some flour and spices, formed into a ball and then steamed or fried.