Let's talk TRAVEL on WooMe.com

Filipinos are lovely people. I know because I am one. Well, more Filipina-American but still I embrace the good aspects of my culture. Not too long ago I had the amazing opportunity to go there and really soak myself in the culture.

My father, who lives in the Philippines, practically forbid me to go and try street food. He would actually say stuff, “NO! YOU’RE GOING TO GET HEPATITIS!” LOLZ!!!!!!!!!

Apparently, with street food in the Philippines (and I am sure as with MANY other countries), sanitation can be a problem.

If you look above at the picture of this freshly fried calamari (the best calamari in the world, I believe), you will notice that there’s a big enough size of dipping sauce in it.

What a lot of the people do is buy pieces of calamari by the piece and take skewers, stick em into each one and then dip then eat. They don’t really double dip each piece but they still double dip the skewers.

So a tip when you’re traveling to the Philippines and you want to eat street food. I am assuming that the people that are reading this come from America, Canada or the UK (meaning, when you go to a developing nation like the Philippines where the exchange rate works in your favor), try to order a huge batch of whatever it is you want to get so that a) you have FRESH, CRISPY calamari and b) you can see how it is being made.

For example, with this calamari, what I did was order like a huge batch big enough for 4-5 people. It was obvious that I was from America so the vendor also knew he was going to be making more money than usual. As sad as it is, in the Philippines the poverty rate is high so it is very hard to live comfortably financially as a street merchant. I was also with someone who actually was full Filipino who made sure I wouldn’t get ripped off as well.

So when my companion and I ordered the food, the vendor happily obliged and freshly made a bunch of calamari! We were able to watch him make it as well (and no it wasn’t like how an inspector would do it haha).

As far as the dipping sauce, we just made our own. It mostly was chopped onions, chili peppers and vinegar. Sooo good. Usually you can get dipping sauce form them and watch them pour it but at the same time, you really don’t know at that point where it’s been or if there has been any type of unintentional cross contamination since it’s already been made.

So everyone wins! I got my awesome freshly made calamari, a lesson in how to make dipping sauce and the vendor gets to close up shop for the day! ;-)