MOI WILL just park this:
Kikiam or quekiam is another popular street food in the Philippines usually sold by street vendors pushing wooden carts equipped with deep frying woks.
Usually sold together with fish balls it is also served with three kinds of dipping sauce: spicy vinegar, sweet brown gravy and sweet and spicy brown gravy.
These are made of ground pork and vegetables wrapped in bean curd sheets. They are then deep fried and dipped in sauce similar to fishballs.
Basically it’s just your regular Pinoy street food sold on wooden carts on almost every street corner where the hoi polloi usually pass by before and after work.
Really nothing special about it, and probably no self-respecting chef or gourmet will serve that hoi polloi street fare, and you will not find it in the menu of most high-end hotel or restaurant.
But these days it has been the flavor of the week (pun intended) and controversial that the credibility and ulterior motive of some journalists and media outfits, including the Head Coach of the Philippine National Women’s Football Team, have been seriously questioned.
So what was all the fuss about the kikiam?
It seems that Marnelli Salvador Dimzon a.k.a. Let Dimzon, currently the Head Coach of the Philippine National Women’s Football team in the Southeast Asia or SEA Games 2019, accused the hotel where her team is billeted for serving them kikiam for breakfast.
The accusation was done in a press conference attended by both local and international media; the story went viral and was quickly picked up and sensationalized by an already biased media.
Of course, cooler heads prevailed and a proper investigation was done resulting to the fact that Coach Let Dimzon was not even present when the lady footballers had breakfast; meaning she had no personal knowledge whether kikiam was indeed served or not.
Excerpts from a Nov. 27, 2019 ABS-CBN News story:
SEA Games: Hotel served chicken sausage, not kikiam, to football players
The hotel housing the women’s football team for the 30th Southeast Asian Games has responded to complaints from the athletes after issues about their accommodations cropped up on social media over the past couple of days.
Edgardo M. Capulong, president and chairman of the board of Whitewoods Convention & Leisure Hotel in Silang, Cavite, sent a letter addressed to William “Butch” Ramirez, the chef de mission of Team Philippines, airing their side of the issue.
In the letter, Capulong denied the claim of Let Dimzon, the coach of the Philippine Malditas, that they were served kikiam at breakfast on Monday.
“Coach Dimzon testified on national television that our menu for breakfast was ‘kikiam’, which in fact is actually chicken sausage,” said Capulong.
“We have proof of this, and the PHISGOC food audit team in the hotel that are on top of the food inspection during, before and after cooking and during meal time, can attest to the fact that it was not kikiam,” he added.
“The other Pinoy athletes also know that they ate chicken sausage.”
Kikiam is not in the hotel’s menu, Capulong added.
And we have excerpts from the Nov. 27, 2019 story from Inquirer.net:
Hotel says PH coach apologized for ‘kikiam for breakfast’ claim
Let Dimzon, the coach of the Philippine women’s football team set to participate in the 30th Southeast Asian (Sea) Games, has “repeatedly apologized” to the hotel for earlier claiming that she and her team were served kikiam, a sausage-like dish made of ground pork, but as part of their breakfast.
Earlier, the Whitewoods Convention and Leisure Hotel clarified that what the football team had for breakfast was not kikiam but chicken sausage, contrary to what coach Dimzon said.
In a follow-up statement released Wednesday, the hotel said the coach admitted she saw the chicken sausage in a plastic container, which the hotel said was not from them.
The hotel added that Dimzon admitted that she was not present during the breakfast buffet.
So what was all the fuss about? But really, Moi is not surprised as the media in the Philippines, particularly ABS-CBN, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and that SEC-registered real estate company pretending to be an online news outfit a.k.a. Rappler, are primed to look for negative issues and not necessarily to cover and report the actual sporting events of SEA Games 2019.
All these nonsense and brouhaha about “lapses” in the SEA Games 2019 have only one purpose and target – to embarrass President Rodrigo Duterte…never mind that they also do the same to the Philippines.
Here’s another “flavor” besides kikiam – a GMA television reporter posted pictures taken inside the women’s toilet in Biñan Football Stadium showing an extra male urinal without a cubicle.
Of course, the photos were posted with malice when the only explanation was that it was formerly a male toilet converted to a female one and the construction was not yet completed.
It raised a lot of questions why GMA reporter Dano Tingcungco was inside the women’s toilet taking pictures when he was supposed to report about SEA Games 2019 and not women’s toilets.
Perhaps the real reason the GMA reporter was in the female toilet in the Biñan Football Stadium was that he was looking for Greg Diez a.k.a. “Gretchen”. Or he was just a common “Peeping Tom”. (brotherlouie16@gmail.com/PN)
