Blitztorte Kalye Hits - Or our lunch, Part 1

Man, when I get on a roll, the posts come pouring out just like a raging faucet of food porn diarrhea or biblical swarm of locusts...

Yesterday, we went on a two part lunch deal. I'd heard about this place and wanted to check it out before August...

The place in question was Blitztorte Kalye Hits. Now I don't know where they got "Blitztorte" from because to me, that sounds like it should be a German joint.  "Kalye" is the Filipino spelling of the Spanish word for "street", "calle" (pronounced "khy-yay" in Spanish, but Filipinos pronounce it as "call-yeh"). So Kalye Hits is "Street Hits", a nod to the mainly street food offerings at this little restaurant in the strip mall that also houses Turo-Turo aka Point Point Joint.

We walked in and no one was there. Bert rang the little bell and a guy showed up from outside after a few minutes of waiting.

Below, their specials board. We chose #1.

Now the reason I wanted to go to this place before August is because earlier this Spring, Travel Channel personality, Andrew Zimmern (of "Bizarre Foods" fame and currently promoting his new show, "Bizarre World") visited San Diego. That episode had him traipsing all around San Diego visiting restaurants like this (accompanied by local Filipino American South Bay chef made good, Anthony Sinsay, formerly of Harney Sushi and now the chef de cuisine at Burlap), Aqui es Texcoco, the Tortas Ahogadas food truck near Toys 'r Us on L St, the Hillcrest Farmer's Market, and in a nod to San Diego's sizable Filipino population, Tita's Kitchenette (where he had sisig). He went to a few more places but those are the only ones that I remember...

Anyhow, once that episode goes on air, I'm sure all of the places that he went to will be swamped by the food curious as well as his hardcore devotees. I wanted to beat the "rush" (assuming there would be one). Above and below, photos of Zimmern and his visit to BKH.

Bert waiting for the one-man show. Seriously, the lone guy took orders, rang people up, cooked the food, and served the food. He should get someone to help him out because it took a long time to get just one $#%@ meat skewer!

A closeup of the menu board featuring many well known and popular Filipino Street Foods like Adidas, Betamax and Walkman. They also had sisig, bulalo (beef bone soup), goat (Kambing), and different kinds of pancit (guisado, canto, palabok, etc)...

The dining area is decently roomy and seems well suited for large parties. In fact, most of the tables were these huge squares that sat eight to ten people. There were a few tables by the wall that could seat just two or four people. I imagine that this is the room where people could also do drunken Karaoke.  Air Supply anyone? There was a small stage with a guitar on the wall and bongos and an old school amp.  Need to go to the "estroom"? By the way, their sink looked disturbingly like a urinal!  No photos this time.

This wall had murals of street life in the Philippines. One of them had Manny Pacquaio on it (not pictured).

The opposite wall had artwork featuring musicians like the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and in our case, Bob Marley, the Philippine rock band The Dawn (I had to look this up and OMFG, they are so good! They are a post punk/new wave/rock band from the mid 80's), and the King of Pop!

Here's our "snack" - #1 on the specials board which includes 1 skewer of pork isaw (pork intestines), five fried fish balls on a stick (balls of fish, NOT fish testicles), and a dozen Kwek Kwek (breaded and fried quail eggs), served with a duo of dipping sauces - sweet and sour along with vinegar with garlic and chilis.

The fried fish balls were nothing great. You can buy a bag of these at any Asian place. I just never would have thought of frying them because I think of them as soup ingredients. They tasted all right but again, this is supposed to be 'pulutan', food that you eat when you're drinking.  The quail egg batter was a vibrant orange, thanks to the annatto (also known as 'atsuete' or 'achiote') in the corn starch based breading. The pork isaw skewer is what had me hesitating.

Cross section of the quail egg. I love that this is called "Kwek Kwek" (another version using chicken eggs is called 'Tokneneng').

Okay, back to the pork intestine skewer. For some reason, I totally blanked out on what pork 'isaw' was. When I saw the specials board, I just saw the Kwek Kwek and fish balls (which we wanted anyways) and overlooked the word 'isaw'. When we got it, we realized that this wasn't really the "white part" of the meat, if you know what I mean.

It looked and smelled promising. Fried and glistening with fat. I was such a wimp because I kept thinking about what it was. It was really difficult for me to eat rings of poop chute. I felt like a bad example to my daughter because I usually encourage her to try new things and here I was balking at a simple skewer.

Bert was the first one to try it. His verdict? It tasted like "chicharon" and that he liked it!

After much vacillation, I manned up and took out the smallest "ring" and chewed it and swallowed it. It wasn't that bad. It tasted like it was marinated in vinegar and soy sauce first before being fried. But it was a little too "chewy" for me. Encouraged by my example, TC was more game in trying the isaw. I was content with just one piece because I could swear I could taste "something else" (something funky). I'm sure it was all in my mind. In the end, Bert gladly finished off the skewer.

We were still hungry since this trio of street snacks was just a sampling and not really a full on meal. I asked Bert to order another pork skewer, this time with real pork and not the intestines. Unfortunately, there were two large parties ahead of him this time around, so it took a long time to get this (keeping in mind the lone dude working here).

The cook/owner/server advised us to try their sisig for our next visit. We might just take him up on his offer. Maybe I might try the 'Walkman' next time or their version of bulalo. But of course, everyone that is Filipino knows that the best Filipino food you can get it the kind that Mom (or yourself) makes. Curiosity is what brought us here and it was worth the visit, not because of the food, but because I learned more about the band, The Dawn. I guess if I grew up in the Philippines in the mid 80's, I would have been into them since they were the shit back then.

Below, a couple of their songs, which came out over two decades ago. It's got that post punk sound with the dreamy synths and chiming guitar (reminiscent of Andy Summers); they sound like a British band circa late 80's:
"Dreams"

and "Little Paradise"


Here are the recent articles from the SD Union-Tribune that featured Andrew Zimmern's visit earlier this Spring:
San Diego's Bizarre Foods
Strange eats suggested by readers (both dated March 15, 2012)

plus another article:
JustLuxe

And here's the mixed bag o' reviews from Yelp.

Blitztorte Kalye Hits
914 E. 8th St., Ste 202
National City, CA 91950
(619) 434-8511
There is no website for this place.

Here's a cool link to Filipino street foods, which explains some of what's on the menu at this place:

Most of these are fried or grilled and served on a stick:

Adidas = Chicken Feet
Beta Max = coagulated chicken or pork blood cube (like the kind you see in Bun Bo Hue, but bigger!)
IUD = Chicken intestines threaded onto a bamboo skewer. Lovely imagery.
Walkman = Pigs ears

Up next, Part 2 of our lunch...more porky goodness!