Street Food Philippines – 50 Best Filipino Street Food You Must Try

Last updated on March 16th, 2024 at 07:06 am

Street Food Philippines – 50 Best Filipino Street Food You Must Try

If you’re an avid reader of our blog, you’ll notice that Rachel and I really LOVE food. For each country we visit, we make sure that we taste their local dishes and street food. Rachel is from the Philippines so she’s the one who introduces me to yummy Filipino street food. Click here to get your discount booking activities in the Philippines!

Read here what to wear in the Philippines, Thailand vs Philippines, best Philippine fruits, vegetarian Filipino food and Filipino drinks

WHERE TO STAY IN THE PHILIPPINES

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Street Food Philippines: Best Filipino Street Food

When we talk about street food in the Philippines prices start from 10-20 PHP to 100 PHP. It means from 10-20 cents of USD to $2 USD. Now keep reading below this amazing list.

1. BALUT

You can find balut as a street food in Southeast Asia in Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Philippines. It’s a developing duck embryo which is boiled and eaten in the shell.

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2. EMPANADA

Ilocos Norte has the best tasting empanadas. If you are in Laoag, you can go to Batac which is about 30 minutes away to buy empanadas. Batac is like the empanada capital in Ilocos Norte.

They even have Empanada Festival on the City Charter Day each 23rd of June. You can find empanadas in the Philippines, they are typically from the North. It’s made by a dough with vegetables, chicken or meat inside. It’s fried in hot oil. Prices are from $1-2.

3. LONGGANISA

Even though the dish is popularly from Ilocos Norte, we also tasted a version in Batanes and we liked so much.

Ilocano Longganisa might be famous, but it is said that the ones from Laoag, specifically in San Nicolas Public Market are jucier because it contains more fat, making it also more lethal. Unlike the Vigan longganisa, Laoag has minimal vinegar or contains none at all.

4. LECHON MANOK

Locally called daraagin Bacolod, this chicken dish is famous for its vinegar and calamansi flavor and that one of a kind lemongrass aroma and taste. Lechon manok, or roast chicken, is famous all over the Philippines and some of the best restaurants in Iloilo serve this dish. Go to Tatoy’s to get the best tasting lechon manok in the city! It’s legit!

5. BANGUS

Bangus, or milk fish, is the Philippine national fish. You can do a lot of dishes with this fish, such as Sinigang (sour soup), inihaw (charcoal-grilled), or just fry it and pair with your specialty sauce.

 6. PALABOK

We love this noodle dish so much! It has thin noodles and rich, orange sauce, with egg slices, onion chives, and chopped chicharon or deep fried pork skin. 

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7. CRISPY PATA

Another famous Filipino dish but not suitable for people with hypertension, ha! It is deep-fried pork leg that is usually paired with a special sauce or just vinegar and soy sauce.

8. PANCIT

You can find this dish in the Philippines. Noodles mixed with vegetables and chicken. It’s served for breakfast and usually served at parties, too. Prices are from $0.5-1. 

Read here our favorite Filipino breakfast!

9. BULALO

Bulalo is a yummy soup that is perfect for rainy days. It’s made with beef, vegetables, and beef broth. Typical Filipino dish from Tagaytay!

10. ARROZ CALDO

Arroz Caldo is another Filipino dish perfect for rainy days. This is the Filipino version of porridge or congee, made with sticky rice, meat (can be internal organs of pig, beef, or chicken), ginger, and seasonings.

11. MAMI

Mami is a soup with noodles, chicken, beef, pork, wonton dumplings, intestines and boiled egg. Price for one bowl starts at $1. One of Ruben’s favorite dishes in Angeles City.

12. HUMBA

A new specialty for us, Humba. It’s pork belly cooked with onion, garlic, black beans and pineapple. It’s served with rice in the carenderias and the price starts from 40 pesos ($ 0.80 ). It´s tasty and one of the most popular dishes in Visayas.

13. BETUTE

Another exotic Pampanga food is betute, or stuffed frog. Deep-fried frog legs are quite common to many cuisines, but in Pampanga, a whole frog is stuffed with ground pork and then deep fried. Would you like to try that?

14. OKOY

Image from Flickr | empotsilog

Okoy or Ukoy is a crispy deep-fried fritters made with small shrimps, vegetables, green papaya, and glutinous rice batter. There are many varieties of this dish. Some even use other seafood or bigger shrimps to make it tastier.

15. PALDEOT (CHICKEN BUTT)

Image from Flickr | Wyatt Belmonte- Street Food Philippines

Have you ever tasted a grilled chicken butt? If not, then you must try it in Pampanga! This tasty snack has a smoky flavor and very tender. You must try it! You won’t even know it’s chicken butt, ha! Kapampangans love to eat this with a cold bottle of beer.

More Street Food Philippines

16. SISIG

Sisig is definitely one of the best Pampanga food you have to try. There are many varieties of this authentic dish but usually it is made with sliced ears and head of the pig mixed with fried onions and chili. It’s served in a sizzling plate with rice and calamansi (or the local lemon). 

17. TORTANG TALONG

A simple dish like Torta made from eggplant, cooked with fried egg is so delicious! It´s very typical in Visayas region, or overall in the Philippines, as local food. We found it more in Visayas though, than in Luzon. Prices start from 20 pesos ($ 0.40)  in local carinderias.

18. CHICKEN FEET

You can find chicken feet as street food in Southeast Asia in Thailand, Laos, Indonesia, Malaysia,Vietnam and the Philippines. They are usually fried then covered with flavored sauce. You can find also find some boiled in soups and later deep fried. It’s perfect to share this meal with cold beer. Prices are $2-3.

19. PORK BARBECUE

Another famous street food in the Philippines is barbecue. It can be pork barbecue or chicken barbecue. You can find them in street food stalls offering different charcoal grilled meat and internal organs of pig and chicken. You can buy pork barbecue in the Philippines for as low as PHP 10!

 20. LECHON

You can find Lechon almost everywhere in the Philippines. The most interesting thing, they eat with their bare hands. It’s a common food whenever there’s a celebration or festival in the Philippines and it brings people together because they don’t want to run out of lechon, ha! Although Pork Lechon is the usual lechon in the Philippines, there are also Chicken Lechon and Beef Lechon. 

21. BATCHOY

Batchoy, an egg noodle soup cooked with pork meat, intestines, liver and bone marrow mixed with fried garlic and scallions is also a famous dish in Iloilo, the Philippines. It is also topped with chicharon (very crispy fried pork belly/rind) right before serving. The broth of batchoy is usually slow cooked for hours to achieve its unique flavor.

22. LUMPIANG

This is a famous food not just in the Philippines but other Southeast Asian countries as well. It is influenced by Chinese cuisine. Lumpiang Shanghai is Filipino spring roll– with ground pork, carrot, and spices covered in a thin Lumpia wrapper. You can dip it in sweet sauce to maximize the flavor.

23. TILAPIA

Another famous type of fish in the Philippines is Tilapia. It’s very versatile and Filipinos cook it by frying, with coconut milk, grilled, and even Sinigang in some provinces.

24. CANSI

If you’ve ever heard of bulalo, it would be easy enough for you to imagine what cansi is, the Ilonggo version of said Filipino dish. For those who think those two words sound made up, bulalo and cansi are basically dishes cooked with the same main ingredient: beef shank. However, the shank isn’t necessarily the highlight of cansi.

The star is actually the bone marrow, which can be eaten by using the wrong end of your spoon/fork to scoop the marrow from the bone. Even shaking the bone downwards to let the marrow fall out might do the trick! Prices for order is around 350 PHP and it’s a complete soup full of meat that can be share for a few of you.

25. DANGGIT

Apart from the ones mentioned above, there are plenty of other seafood available in Bacolod like shrimp and talaba (oysters). Of course, different kinds of fish also abound in Bacolod and they are prepared and processed in different ways. One famous variant of fish found in the region is danggit, or salted and dried rabbitfish. It’s crunchy and salty, perfect to dip in vinegar, eat with hot rice and fried egg in the morning. Yum!

More Filipino Street Food

26. BIBINGKA

Bibingka is another popular Filipino street food mostly eaten during Christmas season. This egg based dessert is eaten alongside. It’s usually served on a banana leaf. Read here Filipino desserts.

27. CHAMPORADO

Champorado is a delicious chocolate rice porridge in the Philippines, usually eaten for breakfast or as snack. It’s served with evaporated or condensed milk. A weird trivia about Champorado is that Filipinos sometimes also eat it with tuyo, or dried fish. You have to taste it when you go to the Philippines!

28. HALO-HALO

It’s the most popular dessert in the Philippines. The ingredients are kidney beans, sugar palm, coconut, ice cream, purple yam and evaporated milk. Prices are from $1-2.

29. BREAD AND ICE CREAM

This strange dessert is from the Philippines. You can find them everywhere, where the sorbetero (ice cream vendor with a cart) is going, especially at Christmas time. It’s just sweet bread with ice cream. It’s delicious and affordable!

30. LEMON PIE 

Because of the weather in Sagada, lemons are easy to course which makes for a perfect reason to have Lemon Pie. These can be bought for less than a dollar per piece in local markets and local shops and as fast as we’ve tasted, they are very good. 

31. YOGHURT 

Another food to taste when in Sagada is their yoghurt, which are home made here. They sell it with different flavors and some specialty shops sell it with fruits. We’ve tasted with Pandan and Cookies and cream. 

32. ICE CREAM

Ice cream is kid’s favorite one. You can find everywhere in the Philippines. Prices are around 10-15 PHP for one and you can find different flavors.

33. BINATOG 

This is a corn desert, steamed and flavored with milk and freshly grated coconut. It also comes with butter and salt and is served for deserts in the afternoon and can be found in the market in Sagada.

34. BUKO

Buko is always refreshing and you can find them everywhere in the Philippines as Filipino street food. Prices are starting from 30 PHP and OMG is so delicious!

35. PUTO

Puto is steamed rice cake staple in every Filipino occassion. It is usually topped with a slice of cheese or salted egg.

36. ENSAYMADA

This is another type of bread in the Philippines. It is covered in butter, cheese, and sugar. It’s fluffy and cheap! Prices start at PHP 20.

37. YEMA

Yema can be identified as a candy because it’s usually served in bite-size pieces. It’s a sweet Filipino delicacy made with milk and sugar.

38. PUTO BUMBONG

Puto Bumbong is one of the traditional Christmas foods in the Philippines. It’s sticky rice with a purple color. It’s served with butter or margarine and you can add coconut grains on top, mixed with sugar. Price for Puto Bumbong is $0.5 (25 pesos).

39. UBE

Ube is a purple yam that is very common in the Philippines as a standalone dessert or an ingredient of another dessert. Actually, most of the purple desserts you’ll ever taste maybe has ube in it. It has a very gentle flavor, that’s why it blends well with other sweet ingredients.

40. TAHO

Taho is one of Rachel’s favorite Filipino street food a snack food made from fresh soft tofu and sago pearl. It’s very sweet because of the arnibal. You can find them early morning.

41. TURON

Image courtesy of Flickr.

Turon is primarily made with saba, a type of banana, wrapped in a thin wrapper then deep-fried with lots of brown sugar. Some turon variations have langka or jackfruit too.

42. PAN DE SAL

Pandesal is the most famous bread Filipino street food. It’s almost like a main commodity in every household. It’s a bread roll made of flour, eggs, yeast, sugar and salt. Commonly eaten with butter too. Some even dip it in coffee!

43. CALAMARES

Image courtesy of Flickr.

It is a street food in the Philippines. Calamares is deep fried squid covered in batter.

44. ISAW (INTESTINES)

Filipinos love street food, and it’s a must to try charcoal grilled intestines of pork or chicken. It’s paired with vinegar or sweet sauce.

45. LECHE FLAN

Leche Flan is a typical Filipino dessert made of eggs and milk, with caramel on the top. It’s really delicious and you have to try it when you’re in the Philippines! It costs as low as PHP 50 per tub.

46. Chicken/Fish Balls

You can find Fish and Chicken Falls as Filipino street food everywhere and anytime. Prices are starting from 2 PHP and they are deep fried.

47. Kwek kwek

kwek kwek is a fried boiled egg. It’s chewy and delicious. It’s serve hot and you will find everywhere as Filipino street food too. Prices are starting from 5 PHP.

48. Banana Cue

Banana cue is deep fried banana with caramel sugar. It’s sweet and delicious. Prices are starting from 10 PHP.

49. Kikiam

Kikiam is a mix of meat and vegetables deep-fried. The size is like a finger and is one of the most popular Filipino street food. Prices start from 5 PHP.

50. Kutsinta

Kutsinta is a cake made of steamed rice cake. It’s a mix of rice flour and brown sugar. You can find them as Filipino street food 5 PHP.

What do you think about our Filipino street food? Did we forget anything? This is our Top 5 Filipino street food: sisig, calamares, isaw (intestines) taho and palabok. Let us know in the comments below your top Filipino street food.

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