Sunday, May 1, 2016

Toto Isawan sa San Diego

Mabuhay!

I've been on a Filipino food kick lately.  Those down home stewed dishes with tons of fat or grilled and fried innards on a stick street food is whats been catching my attention lately.  There has to be something said about cultures that take these undesirable cuts and scraps from these animals and making them taste good, well most of them anyway.  In the picture below is a smorgasbord of offering from Totos Isawan sa San Diego.  Ihaw I believe means grilled and Isaw means the innards of these animals,  I could be wrong but take the word of a coconut Filipino (Brown on the outside white on the inside) with a grain of salt.


Lets start with the chicken feet.  I love me some dim sum and the chicken feet stewed in the black bean and garlic is one of my favorites.  When I saw these for the first time I was scared they would be tough because they looked straight grilled.  But they were slow cooked or possibly braised before grilled and they were tender and tasted like heaven!  I ate most of the ones pictured above.

On the bottom right those are called puet ni manok or chicken butt.  Yes they are the buts of the chicken and you can see the little poop shoot on the ends but the meat around it... Delicious!  Doesent have the mineraly poo taste at all just some juicy grilled meat.

The red looking balls are called kwek kwek.  Not sure if that is translated into something but the smaller ones on the right are quails eggs that have been hard boiled then battered and fried into the balls.  Chelesterol Heaven!  I probably ate the equivalent of the cholesterol of a dozen eggs because I was popping these like nothing.  They did have the bigger regular chicken eggs pictured on the left but if your going to eat a battered fried egg you might as well go all out and do the quail egg.  SO GOOD.

Now the long white tube that is skewered on the stick next to the chicken butt is chicken intestine.  Now traditionally these intestines are not washed very well and this was what was the most terrifying part to me but when you get a good char on these they taste so good.  Reminiscent of a chewier chicken skin in texture but a much more complex flavor from the minerals that were in the well.... Poo.  Really good.

There were 2 types of the pig intestines, the large and the small.  I have to say the large was really not appetizing to me.  I even had it burnt to a crisp but lets just say I felt like I could taste everything the pigs ate.  Just a smell and flavor that really was so overpowering I couldnt enjoy the flavor.  The smaller intestine on the other hand had a very nice chew and only had a slight smell of the feces haha!  I actually really liked the small intestine very much so.

Not pictured here are the fish balls.  These I felt like my company who were all true Filipinos were really drawn to because it had a sense of nostalgia for them.  My friend Nicco said when he ate it it reminded him of being on the side of the street hungry after working all day.  Now Ive had fish balls prior to this and I don't really ever remember them being great but with most of the isawan here they came with a specific sauce that each flavor was supposed to be paired with.  The most common sauce I think is called sowsowan which I think also mean to dip.  This is usually a sweet, vinegary, garliky sauce which goes great with the super rich foods.  The fish balls however had a liver based sauce which was mineraly and sweet and really took the one note fish balls to another level.  

Another dish which I would say was my favorite that I had this night that is also not pictured is called Betamax.  Kind of sounds like the fish you buy at walmart that you put on your desk but these were actually coagulated blood cakes that are grilled.  These were so good because it was like an airy mineraly cake that had a meaty taste and texture.  They were pictured because I ate them all so fast.

All in all I had a great experience,  I always appreciate trying new things and just to see my heritage and others that actually came from there appreciate these things was really eye opening.  So I encourage everyone to try it or you could wait until I open my own ihaw ihaw spot in North County!

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