Chicharon (Pork Skin Crackling)

P20.00 worth of chicharon with a bag of spiced vinegar

A fried peanut vendor on the corner street of España-Blumentrit sells not just peanuts but fresh deep fried chicharon for P20. I once saw this peanut vendor frying pork skin when I passed by his food cart. It's an assurance to his customers that the chicharon is fresh and not packed or stacked on shelves for weeks.

This is a concept that's somewhat unique to the rest of his competitors. He added chicharon to his existing display of fritters of all sorts. No one among the peanut vendors ever tried to duplicate his idea. The vendor is like a street food version of R. Lapid's Chicharon.

It’s easy to tell that the quality of oil used through the color of chicharon. Here, the color is white (check the photo above). It means that oil used for frying is fresh not recycled. The seasoning is kept into minimal. So, it's not salty.  There's no grainy feeling of salt around the chicharon. It's crunchy all the way down to the last piece. It's fresh with no porky or greasy aftertaste.  There’s huge difference to the taste compared to the commercial version sold on the streets and grocery stores. 

It really feels good to see few street foods that offer something fresh for a change.

 

Meatballs

Taking my food review very seriously takes me to a lot of interesting and disappointing results. The latter statement proves true on this portion of my article. I have to admit I fell for different misleading products that never delivered the result it promises most of the time.

At first look, I thought it was a hardboiled egg coated on brown batter peddled along the corner street of España Blvd and Blumentrit. The lady who sells this stuff told me that it was a meatball with a price tag of P2.00 per piece.  I mean, seriously, I never saw any street food that sells meatballs for a snack at a cheap price. So, I said to myself, that, this stuff could be something that’s interesting to review. With so much enthusiasm in my mind, I bought four pieces of this stuff and went back home.

Its a meatball with no meat.

 Surprisingly, it wasn’t a meatball at all when I took my first bite.  It’s another example of bad or misleading product name. Time and again, I sliced through each of the one and a half inch meatballs hoping to see traces of meat but I only found very few strands of corned beef, pieces of minced onion and onion leaves and the rest is made of batter. I can’t even taste the strands of the corned beef. The meatball is spongy like Japan’s Takoyaki. Perhaps, the owner should have renamed her product into “cornedbeefyaki”. Hmmmm…I like the sound of it, “cornedbeefyaki” (yucky). The texture is like a puto (steamed muffins) that was deep fried. 

My experience on this meatball is a combination bad advertising and bad culinary skills. If I were the lady’s kitchen instructor, I will give her a big “F” as her grade.

Cheese Stick

A five inch fritters

Cheese stick lovers out there, beware. Stay away from the location of the food cart that I'm going to mention later. There's nothing inside the lumpia wrapper for your taste buds to enjoy for this particular sample. Only one food cart offers this kind of food along Blumentrit corner España and it cost P1 per piece.

Where's my cheese??

Peeling each samples layer after layer of wrapping for that coveted piece of cheese and I found nothing. The uneven red orange color around the cheese stick isn't a melted cheese. It's a powdered cheese used on french fries brushed around the lumpia wrapper before frying. I was hoping that the cheese stick would somehow deliver a bit of saltiness of cheese powder, that, didn't work either. Instead, the cheese tasted sweet, a taste that shouldn't be there. Wow. It's the worst and shortest food review that I ever had.

Lumpiang Shanghai Review

When I was a kid, I remember how my Mom prepares lumpiang shanghai exclusively for special occasions, but not anymore. This food that was once a part of a regal lineup of cuisine during festivities is now a common commodity on food carts. Where else can I find such insane variety of fried food? It’s in Blumentrit. 

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See the similarity of the filling

Lumpiang shanghai bought at P.Florentino St. corner Blumentrit

 

Fried siomai bought at the same store at P.Florentino St. corner Blumentrit

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The lumpiang shanghai that I bought at Blumentrit corner P.Florentino St. is below average for my taste. Here’s why. The meat and vegetable filling is starchy and the meat is overly minced or grounded into almost mush. I can barely taste the meat or vegetable. The owner of the food cart is really cunning when it comes to food presentation. He used the same filling of a fried siomai that I reviewed earlier. Customers that eats at this place is fooled by thinking they are eating an authentic lumpiang shanghai, where in fact, they're eating a siomai filling wrapped in a lumpia wrapper (see the pictures above). That's what you get when you don't "play" with your food before you eat it. They should have renamed the food into "lumpiang siomai" or "siomai na lumpia". Either ways, it's a totally bad idea and preparation.

 

Lumpiang Shanghai bought at España-Blumentrit

I really can't complain. Street food will always be a street food. The lumpiang shanghai sold along España Blvd corner Blumentrit fared pretty well with the taste and texture of the meat but not on the volume of filling inside the wrapper. Minced vegetable is quite visible and easily identified while eating. I tasted no trace of meat extenders. The  meat filling indicates that it was cooked with soy sauce. I set aside a piece for later eating but when I returned back to eat it, the once fresh cooked pork meat tasted quite sharp and sour. I have no exact words to describe it but I'm pretty sure that it's not spoiled. The taste is somewhat pretty close to aged meat. That's the closest description I can imagine. 

Ministop's Fried Siomai

This, you should try. The fried siomai they have on this convenient store defines what quality really means. It’s been an old adage that the price of the food dictates the quality. I totally agree with that, sometimes. I visited a nearby Minsitop branch to get a few samples and make a review on the spot. Waiting time took me almost less than five minutes to get my fried siomai served on a not-so-busy afternoon. 

(left) Crab Siomai, (middle) Sharksfin, (right) Pork

I’m not sure if P29 per four pieces on a stick is cheap but the taste is something everyone should try. I bought three samples to taste-the pork, crab and the sharksfin. Each of the fried siomai has a right amount of crispiness with no taste of recycled oil.

The fried pork siomai is somewhat sweet, not starchy, and the texture is like embutido. They really got the way I prefer my fried siomai to be. Here’s something amazing. The ground pork is real unlike the street food version. I can literally taste and identify the components like pork bits, pork fat and spring onion while chewing. 

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See the difference:

Fried Siomai on the street with 1cm of filling.

Fried Pork Siomai at Ministop with almost 1 inch of filling

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 The fried crab siomai is a combination of pork siomai with a small slice of crab stick and pieces of thinly cut nori sheets. It is also one of the delicious fried siomai that I ever had. I was skeptic that the crab stick might not deliver a strong flavor. I was wrong. My first bite on the fried crab siomai got my senses tingling. 

I’m not really feeling the sharksfin fried siomai. The one thing that got me thinking on why I suddenly fell out from delightful snacking of the sharksfin fried siomai, is because, my taste buds got overwhelmed by the strong tasting pork and crab fried siomai, which I ate before sampling the quite delicate flavor of the sharksfin siomai. The iced tea didn’t help to flush down the aftertaste of the first batch of samples. Oh well, got to buy another fried sharksfin siomai soon and update this portion of my blog. One lesson learned. Eat the delicate ones before moving up to a much stronger taste.

Beef and Chicken Mami

An empty lot at the corner of P. Florentino street and Blumentrit becomes a food hotspot for hungry people. This make shift street eatery opens at 2:00PM and closes early at 6PM. Arriving late at  3 or 4PM to order food at this street eatery, is a bad sign that you'll end up empty handed. Getting there first assures you that you can still choose the best portions. What makes this street eatery a sensation in my neighborhood, is because, of three things: 1.) food cost P25 2.) they have bigger serving 3.) they have variety of short order snacks like: bilo-bilo, palabok, mami, sotanghon, lomi, pancit, spaghetti and others. You won't find anything special at this eatery, their ingredients is straightforward or sometimes, quite improvised. Well, I'll leave that thought to you if I said "improvised".

I took a momentary off from reviewing fried food and focused my attention on reviewing a big serving of beef and chicken mami. This street eatery don't prepare their noodles on standard measurement. They just grab a handful of everything and pour a hot soup on the bowl. Since I don't have my measuring instrument and food review notes with me, I decided to take home my noodles.

 

This is how it looks like when you take the noodles home. One plastic for the dry ingredients and another plastic for the broth/soup.

 Everything in the bowl is simple. It consist of the following ingredients: shredded chicken meat, noodle, broth made from beef bones and meat, tidbits of beef fat, fried garlic bits, finely chopped onion leaves and a whole hard boiled egg. The taste of broth is no way near to some known noodle house but a P25 bowl is a sure way to get you filled. I ate this noodle at 4PM and I never crave for dinner later at night. 

Placed the dry ingredients on the bowl.

The noodle is cooked just right and chewy. The garlic is crunchy and flavorful. The broth seems OK but a bit greasy considering that the pot on where they prepared the broth has a lot of tidbits of beef fat that is continuously simmered.

 After placing everything on a three and a half inches height by nine inches diameter of bowl, it occupied almost two and a half inch height by six and a half inches diameter.

KAIMURA or KAMIMURA (kay mura or kami mura)

After a few minutes of examining the Krispy Krust Empananda at SM Baguio, my wife came in with a friend and proposed that we should try one of the heavy meals along the food court. I wasn’t really in the mood to try one meal at that time due to the fact the food court is packed with people with few original selection of food to choose from.  Suddenly, my wife got her eyes hooked on a big black bento plate loaded with two slices of pork that a lady was carrying. She literally traced back the origin of the big black bento plate.  At the end of the food court, a store named Kaimura or Kamimura is where the huge slices of pork and giant platter came from (Sorry, guys. I forgot the exact name of the food store so I posted two most probable names to it.). The owner really got creative to name his business turning Filipino words into a catchy Japanese themed food store.

We ordered this black rectangular platter with two large slices of meat, rice noodles and rice that can feed two people with just a platter. Finally, my mood to do a food review kicked in. The price of P108 for a huge platter with iced tea is not as bad. My wife’s friend almost gave up eating on the platter he ordered that was designed for two.

I will review each of the contents separately to keep it organized.

Pork Slice topped with Teriyaki Sauce

I really can’t determine whether it was grilled flat on an iron or marinated, then cooked on a pot like adobo. I’m pretty sure that the pork isn’t fried. Perhaps, the darkening of the pork slice is due to its marinade or rub, which is, soy sauce. The teriyaki sauce is OK with a few fibers of gingers in it.  I only have one problem on the teriyaki sauce, that is, the strong gingery taste. Rating for the meat tenderness is B for average. My spoon and fork can’t easily break the meat even on sufficient effort. The pork is almost half an inch thick and almost five to six inches in length.

Breaded Pork

This is not exceptional either. Let me tell you why. The pork slice with breading is cooked into crunchy golden brown perfection but oily. I did taste a faint burnt aftertaste while chewing the breaded pork. Like what I’ve said on my previous article, reused oil and re-fried food ruins the taste. If there’s something that the breaded pork slice excelled in, that would be, the tenderness of the meat.

Rice Noodles

 As you look at the picture on top, the rice noodles on my platter is literally just rice noodles. I did found pieces of tinny weeny carrots and it was barely visible to my naked eye. Infusing good taste to rice noodles calls for number of ingredients. I find it impossible for the rice noodles on my platter to achieve that quality taste of an original since I can’t see any other ingredients in it. They may have infused flavor in the oil then mixed on the rice noodle or may have used other seasoning.

Rice

Well, nothing special. It’s just plain old rice served for almost two people.

Sauce

The upper right portion of the rectangular platter is a sweet-spicy blend ketchup and additional teriyaki sauce.

Krispy Krust Empanada

I had a piece of my bad day three days ago. Some things happen unexpectedly leaving me quite off my normal routine of doing things. I went to Baguio for an important matter. The chilly atmosphere, the rain plus the preoccupation of dealing an important event is a pretty bad mix for my food review habit. With the hope to find something new to review, I dressed up and went to a familiar spot in Baguio City, which is, SM shopping mall.

As I walked along the floors of the shopping mall, I found something that’s worth trying to taste-The Krispy Krust Empanada. The food stall really did well in reinventing traditional empanada by putting different fillings like: ham & cheese, tuna, chicken asado, chicken adobo, barbecue chicken...etc. None of those flavors hit my interest until I saw the Chicken Special with Veggie Empanada. The six inches Chicken Special Empanada also boasts of its almost one and a half thick of filling for the price of P25.00. 

Here’s the best part. Breaking it open to see what’s inside.  In order for me not to appear conspicuous to the empanada vendor, I ran into the food court to analyze the food.

Before tearing apart the empanada, I pressed my fingers on the bread to check whether the bread is really filled. Unfortunately, the empanada easily breaks upon applying pressure. That was really a bad start. I thought that the bread would spring back after applying pressure because of the filling. I noticed that the chicken-vegetable filling isn’t as much after breaking it. 

My expectation really got dragged down further when I saw only chicken and sayote strips as filling. I was expecting something of a meat and with a number of vegetable inside the bread that would make the empanada that I bought something unique. Perhaps, it really lives up with the product name as chicken with veggie (singular) and not chicken with veggies (plural). The filling is really ordinary. The sauce mixed with vegetable and chicken tasted like a bullon cubes or a powdered seasoning.  

The bread part tasted great and quite thick. The crust on the edge is tough and crunchy. As I examine the bread further, I found out that, the color yellow on the inner layer of the bread isn’t always from the sauce of the chicken and vegetable filling-it’s raw dough (look at the picture above). The raw dough experience isn’t pleasant. I’m pretty sure that there’s something wrong with the way they cooked the empanada.