Happiness Over Simple Things

Seeing this stall in the mall brought me back to memory lane. I am a sucker for street foods, and basically grew up with mamang taho and puto in the mornings, and manong ihaw-ihaw in the afties together with kuya fishballs, mangoes, turnips on sticks, scrambles. Me and my friends would even drive up to one of these private houses that grills isaw (chicken intestines), dugo (chicken blood dried and cubed), adidas (chicken feet), etc... And it would turn out to be a mini party for us, holding our bottled sodas and enjoying the fun of having your snack grilled right in front of you. It is something I really miss, especially when I transferred to another city. I live in a city where in it would be your lucky day to bump into one of these manongs. Those days were simply something I'd like to do again. Where, when you have Php50 you are good to go. When my life was still in the state of "just chillin" no pressures, no stress, no bills to pay, just plain and simple.

Turnips Php10, Green Mango Php20

So when I saw this one afternoon, imagine the excitement I immediately had. I miss that green mango with sweet and spicy bagoong (shirmp paste), as well as singkamas (turnips). I was too happy not to care if I would smell weird after eating these healthy snacks because of the shrimp paste. It is something I never had in 7 years. I know i can just simply buy them from the grocery and prepare them myself. The thing is I can't find the perfect shrimp paste that tastes just like manongs. And thier's tastes exaclty like the shrimp pastes you get from the streets but in a more hygenic and neat way. They have 3 different kinds of paste sweet, chili and sweet chili. They have different serving spoons per paste, the server uses subway gloves (A bit of a trivia here, that's the nickname of the poly glove you see most of the time beings used to prepare your food and popularized by Subway). They would slice our mangoes and turnips to bite sizes. I was in luck that that and I was hoping I could bump into mamang fishballs too. And my blast from the past experience would be complete! I am missing my friends from the hood while enjoying my mini street food fix in the mall. 

Then, while walking around I heard some ladies shouting SEAFOODS Ma'am, Sir!!! I came around and checked out what kind of seafood she's selling. And indeed it was my lucky day, they are selling deep fried dimsum in different kinds (these are the upgraded fishballs, squidballs, kikiams etc.) I had my eye on this crab egg which has 6 huge pieces in a stick. I asked for 2 orders of that sliced in half (I know it won't fit in my mouth so I had to ask them to half it). They also have different sauces to complete your order. And ofcourse I have my milktea with me (something that I'm having in replace of soda. I'm trying to quit drinking soda for health reasons). 

I hope this post triggered you to crave for some street foods we Pinoys literally grew up with. I've seen Boy Taho, Scramble Manila, and other street food deli's and yet have to try them one day. 

"It is the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary; only wise men are able to understand them" -Paulo Coelho

Toodles,