BuzzFeed staff takes on Filipino street food

MANILA, Philippines – The BuzzFeed staff is at it again, exploring Filipino food on video. Last May, they tried Philippine fastfood chain Jollibee for the first time and had mixed – but mostly negative – reaction to their food.

This time, they tried what are known as Philippine “street food” favorites. Among the items on the menu: Fish balls, kwek-kwek, turon, isaw, and kikiam. 

Street food was the subject of controversy in March when a polish woman traveling in the Philippines wrote a blog saying she’d “rather go hungry” than eat Filipino food – street food in particular – again. (Editor’s note: In an earlier version of the story, we referred to the ‘I’d rather go hungry’ blogger as Norwegian. She is in fact Polish. We regret the error.)

Kikiam is deep fried ground pork mixed with vegetables; kwek kwek is deep fried battered quail egg, and turon is a sweet banana egg roll, also deep fried.

“My eyes are setting me up to eat a donut, but it’s fish,” one of the tasters said before eating the fish ball. Compared to the Jollibee video, they seemed to have enjoyed Filipino street food much better, except for one of the items. 

“This is like some fear factor shit right here,” one of the guys said when looking at what he was about to eat. Find out which street food item the tasters couldn’t stomach in the video below:

– Rappler.com