After fourteen years away from the Philippines, Filipino-American content creator Bella Poarch finally got to enjoy Filipino street food again.
On her Instagram page, Bella shared a video of her street food adventure in Manila. "It's been fourteen years since I had Filipino street food so let's go get it," she said.
Among the street food she tried were kwek-kwek, kikiam, and Filipino red hotdogs.
Fans online were quick to react to Bella's video.
"Omg Yumm! Let me book my flight to the Philippines," one fan commented.
"Awesome! I wanna try!" another fan said.
It was in early May when Bella announced that she traveled to the Philippines again after 14 years. Bella visited Bohol during her trip.
In an interview with Press ESC in December 2024, Bella expressed her excitement to visit the Philippines again. "I’m actually going home soon. I’m really excited. I can’t wait for this year to be over so I can go," she said.
In 2015, Bela enlisted in the US Navy which made coming back to the Philippines challenging. "I was in the military, and usually, it’s really hard to go back to the Philippines when you’re in the military. I never really did it (returning to the Philippines) because, at that moment, I was working 12 to 14 hours a day. So, I didn’t have time," she recounted.
Bella was 17 when she joined the military in order to escape an abusive household. "I just didn’t want to be there forever. And so, the military was one way out. And I also just didn’t want to be like, you know, just run away and be homeless and stuff. And so yeah, that was, like, my one option," she recalled.
Bella was supposed to return to the Philippines in 2020 but the pandemic happened. "I got out of the military, and I booked a flight to [the] Philippines [in] 2020, this was before TikTok and everything," she pointed out. "Covid happened, so it got canceled. My flight got canceled."