Therese in Taiwan: Sausage in rice roll 大腸包小腸

Let me introduce you guys to what they call the Taiwanese-style hot dog. It's sausage (which is so yummy, I might add) in rice roll. The rice roll looks like a sausage from the outside, but don't be fooled!

See, the "sausages" on the left are the rice rolls. When you order it, they take a piece of that rice roll, slice it open, and then put the sausage in. They also add other stuff like cabbages, pickles, etc. (but they aren't seen in the picture)

This can be found in a lot of night markets here in Taiwan - I've had it in Shilin night market, Shida night market, and Gongguan night market. It only costs 50NT (~PhP 75) and it's really filling.

A tip to fully enjoy night markets is to go with your friends. You can buy a variety of food, and then each have a bite or two (or more!) of everything. That way, you can taste a lot of delicious (and sometimes unhealthy) food! Plus, since you'll be walking around the market anyway, you don't have to worry about all that calories you're taking in. Just keep walking until you feel like you've burned all that you've eaten. Hee!

Sa Kanto | Podium

Podium | Sa Kanto

by: Tiffy

Manila Foodistas was lucky enough to be invited to try out Sa Kanto at the Podium. Kanto is the Filipino word for corner, sa kanto meaning just around the corner. 

Saan ka pupunta? Where are you going?

Diyan lang sa kanto. Just there around the corner. 

Sa Kanto serves all kinds of Filipino food--from street food to pulutan (food one usually eats while drinking) to meals. 

It is also by Il Ponticello, who is the group behind Borough which just happens to be situated beside Sa Kanto.

Therese in Taiwan: Gua Bao 刮包

Since Taiwan is still on a Chinese New Year high, I have decided to dedicate this post to one of the dishes famous during this season - gua bao 刮包, or otherwise known as Taiwan hamburger (it's also known as Taiwanese pork belly buns). This is typically eaten on the lunar calendar's December 15, but it's also available up to the Chinese New Year, or maybe even later.

What is it? It's this white bun filled with mustard greens, pork belly, and topped with cilantro and crushed peanuts.

Yummy! You can buy the fillings separately, and then assemble it at home (like what we did), or you can also buy the ingredients and cook them yourself, or you can just buy one at gua bao stores (it costs 45NT ~PhP 65)

Happy Chinese New Year!

Therese in Taiwan: Peanut and ice cream wrap 花生捲加冰淇淋

Obviously, I'm not good with "technical terms." I don't actually know how this is called in English, but I'm calling it the peanut and ice cream wrap, because it literally is that.

I was able to try this at Jiufen Old Street, located in Keelung city (north of Taiwan) but I think they're also available in some night markets here in Taipei.

There's a bed of crushed peanut topped with 2 scoops of ice cream, and wrapped with what I believe is rice paper. They're yummy! It sounds crazy but even if it's cold outside, ice cream is still ice cream, and I believe that ice cream is a must-eat!

I think this costs around 30 NT (~PhP 45) but I'm not sure. It's worth a try though!

How to get to Jiufen from Taipei:

Take the train from Taipei Main Station to Ruifang Station, and then look for the Keelung bus (across the street) bound for Jiufen

Get off at MRT Zhongxiao Fuxing station and take the bus bound to Keelung. I think you can take buses 1815 and 1810.

Mango-Ong

Mango-Ong
by Nicole

Craving for that sour green mango with the uber perfect sweet and spicy bagoong? No worries, you can now find them at the mall! Let's say hello to Mango-Ong!

Mango-Ong at SM Taytay

Mango-Ong is the newest food stall I came across at a mall. They sell green mangoes and singkamas (turnip) topped with that delectable bagoong! Mangoes or singkamas with bagoong are two of the most popular Filipino street food. We eat them as appetizer, dessert, or snack.

Mango-Ong's green mango with sweet and spicy bagoong

One order of green mango with bagoong is only 20 pesos. For the bagoong, you can choose if you want it sweet, sweet and spicy, extra hot, salty, or salty & spicy. They have a chart for the bagoong variety but I was not able to take a photo of it though. Anyway, here's the pricelist. :D

So next time you're hungry for green mango or singkamas with bagoong, you don't need to look for it on the streets. :D

And now to announce the winner of The Bellevue Hotel Manila Cafe d'Acie buffet giveaway: Ms. Dominique Calilung.

Congratulations to the winner and thank you for all the people who joined!

Therese in Taiwan: Steamed bun 包子

My friends and I recently took a trip to Yehliu Geopark (more on this in another blog post), which is located on the north coast of Taiwan. We met up at 9 in the morning and decided to grab a bite before boarding the bus.

One of my friends recommended this 包子店 (steamed bun store) nearby because apparently, it was a famous store in the area.

Steamed bun is usually filled with meat and vegetables but they also sell buns wholly for vegetarians. A piece costs 15 NT (~PhP 22.5), and since I hadn't had breakfast yet, I ordered 2 pieces. They're a bit of a mess to eat because aside from the meat and vegetable filling, the inside also contains soup. They're like a bigger version of 小龍包 (Xiao Long Bao). Yum!

The store is located near MRT Zhongxiao Fuxing Exit 2 (捷運忠孝復興站，出口2).

Therese in Taiwan: Poffertjes 荷蘭小鬆餅

Two months ago, the Taipei World Design Expo 2011 happened, and my friends and I looked at the exhibitions. After walking around the halls, we decided to grab a bite. We weren't familiar with the area so we approached this group of locals and asked them whether they could point us in the right direction. They ended up accompanying us to this cafe (where the food costs more than we would have wanted to spend, so we decided not to eat there anymore) and we found out that they owned this food stall that's located at Gongguan night market (公館夜市 gong1 guan3 ye4 shi4).

The name of their stall is 荷蘭小鬆餅 (he2 lan2 xiao3 song1 bing3 - which translated is Holland's small pancakes). Below their sign is the word Poffertjes.

Since I wasn't familiar with Poffertjes, I had to rely on Wikipedia (yeah, oops) to know what they were. Apparently, they're a "traditional Dutch batter treat" that "resembles small, fluffy pancakes".

You could choose from either sweet or salty poffertjes. My friend and I (obviously) went for the sweet kind. They currently have 4 flavors - original (經典荷蘭 － 原味口味), banana (蹺蹺扳 － 香蕉口味), pumpkin (南瓜馬車 － 南瓜口味), and ice cream (總動員 － 冰淇淋口味). I went for the original and my friend tried the banana. The first 2 flavors cost 50 NTD (~ PhP 75), and the last 2 cost 55 NTD (~ PhP 83).

Banana (蹺蹺扳 － 香蕉口味) | 50 NTD (~ PhP 75)

Original (經典荷蘭 － 原味口味) | 50 NTD (~ PhP 75)

From the salty kind, you could choose from chicken (60 NTD ~ PhP 90, tomato (65 NTD ~ PhP 98), or beef (65 NTD ~ PhP 98). I got this picture from their Facebook page.

Chicken roll (雞肉卷卷)

In case you don't know how to read Chinese characters, I've written down their Chinese names so that you could just do character recognition! LOL. If you wanna know how to say/pronounce them, I could write down the PinYin for you guys! :)

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2. The Bellevue Pastry Corner + Buffet Giveaway

Taiwan Street Food: Sweet Potato Balls

One of my favorite street foods in Taiwan would have to be what they call 地瓜球 (di gua qiu) or sweet potato balls. They're deep-fried yummy little balls that are a bit sticky inside. They're 20 TWD (30 PHP) for a small serving and 30 TWD (45 PHP) for the bigger one.

It kind of reminds me of the texture of tikoy. I seriously don't know how they got it to be so sticky! I try not to eat so much of it cause it's deep-fried.

Wu Fen Pu: Wholesale Garment Market

If you ever end up in Taipei, you have to go to Wu Fen Pu. It's a station away (you get off at Songshan Station) from Taiwan Main Station (14 TWD | 21 PHP) and the place is full of clothing shops. Clothes, shoes, belts, bags, hats, eyewear -- shoppers will love it there. Racks by the road are usually on sale, and they go for as low as 100 TWD | 149 PHP. 

There aren't a lot of food stalls as you go deeper into the alleyways so once we got there, we turned right at the first store selling noodles (I didn't even catch the name of the place!).

Tiffy | Thea | Syril

I couldn't understand the menu so I just ordered whatever my cousin ordered. Apparently, the major difference is the kind of noodles they use: they all almost taste the same. A bowl costs 35 TWD | 52 PHP. It's a bit oily and I didn't like the fact that they use styro bowls (I didn't know until it was served), but it was my first meal of the day so I gobbled it down so fast that I stole food from my sister afterwards.

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Manila Foodistas at Table For Three, Please

The Foodistas were asked to write a feature on Filipino Street Food for Table For Three, Please.

An often overlooked aspect of the Filipino gastronomical experience is that of our street food. From your typical isaw & barbeque, to your fishball & squidball, and to the bibingka and puto bungbong that is reminiscent of cool December mornings and misa de gallo.
Read the rest of the article here.

We really enjoyed going out and working on this feature ♥ Thank you so much for having us!