FLAVOURS OF ILOILO

A trip to any destination wont be complete without having a taste of its local cuisine and delicacies and bringing some of it home, what ever those maybe. Our recent trip to Mindanao saw us first having dinner, during our overnight in Cagayan de Oro city, at P.Joes in Limketkai center. With its WWII theme and ambiance, I surrendered to puttanesca and tuna sandwich. The next day we had breakfast at a floating restaurant in Talisayan town. With the usual fresh catch of the day being displayed and cooked to your will, it was a good start for the day considering the view. With a cousin working for Del Monte Phils in CDO, our meals always had plenty of fresh Del Monte pineapples of which oftentimes I make a substitute for rice. Naturally very sweet, that we even took a whole fruit with us home A cousin's family prepared this lunch for us when we visited them last March 18 in Sibagat, Agusan Del Sur. It was almost an all meat ensemble with fish escabeche, chicken adobo, pork adobo,...

It was my first time at Healthy Shabu shabu at The Podium. It was for a Christmas party with some online barkada. We got a shabu shabu set consisting of seafood, noodles, meat and vegetables. We had fun "dumping" almost all of these in our "pot" while we chatted until it was ready.

Lubid-lubid is a sugar coated crispy goodie named for being like rope twirls. Lubid is rope in Hiligaynon . For those sugar-nots, there are some lubid lubids that dont have sugar coating, just the plain crispy bread. They are made from regular dough, shaped in to these twirls then deep fried. When cooked, the are rolled in sugar for coating and flavour. Another goodie cooked in almost the same way is serafina.

Quality doesn't have to be expensive. This made JD famous. From cakes and pastries to short orders, locals flock whether to eat or take something out. Their most famous branch is easily at the Roadhouse along Gen. Luna where it shares the building with it's sister restaurant, Emillion. Tourists usually are "shocked" to find out what they will eat costs about a fraction of what they usually pay for. Here are some examples. Club sandwich, 2 cups of macaroni salad, chicken-salad-rice plater, bowl of pancit molo, mango custard cake, chocolate cake, cherry fizz drink (not shown) TOTAL PhP 259.50 Ham sandwich on ciabatta bread, caesar salad and drink TOTAL PhP 98 Strawberry cooler, 2 glasses of iced tea, 2 bowls of pancit molo, 4 slices of cakes (chocolate, tiramisu, blueberry cheesecake, angel cake) TOTAL PhP 245 1 whole tiramisu cake around PhP 325 Among their best sellers are baked macaroni (around PhP 20), chicken ala king (around PhP25), assorted dessert squares (mor...

Ted's and Deco's are now outdoing each other in almost all terms to position themselves as then umber one, a title that easily belonged to the former for many years. Ted's having more branches here and in other parts of the country have the advantage and headstart while Deco's can't be taken for granted, being operated by the people behind the succesful Mang Inasal brand. Ted's started to offer rice and combo meal is some of their branches to lure more people while Deco's decided up to bring "pre war" pan de sal and tie up with "Pa-a" bakery (famous for its pan de sal). Also the latter decided to target not only the lcoals but tourists and balikbayans for it opened a pasalubong shop right next to its flagship store in La Salette. Now which is better? I can only speak for myself For starters Ted's "presents" batchoy better. Ted's makes it an island while Deco's seemed to have been "tsunamied". See for your...

Noche Buena 2007 After many Christmases away from home, I did all the planning, buying and cooking for this Noche Buena. Dinner rolls and crema de fruta were bought from Tinapayan bakery, ready made pizza from Iloilo supermart, plus the usual ham, hotdog and keso de bola and finally baked macaroni just styled in two ways. Christmas 2007 Lunch I had to sit this one out. The chicken and yellow rice came from FOOD magazine (originally lechon de leche) plus the baked fish topped with cheese and vegetables. Sotanghon and lechone kawali completed our Christmas lunch. Media Noche 2007 Obviously, I had my hands on this but it was a collective effort. There was much protein on the table with around 2 kilos of ham, 1.5kilos of pork barbecue and a kilo of "" cheesedogs (which disappeared so fast). My frustration of not being able to "secure" a Goldilocks cathedral window prompted me to make my own version. The usual dinner rolls from Tinapayan and Sprite with l...

Young bamboo shoots popularly known as tambo have made its way into most regional cuisines. Be it made into atsara, filling in lumpias or plainly sauteed with ground meat. To prepare bamboo shoots for this dish, thinly sliced tambo must be boiled around 30minutes then squeezed to get rid of its bitter flavour. To the Ilonggos, tambo is a slimy and milky "laswa" dish consisting of saluyot, okra and coconut milk, it oftentimes has shrimps or crabs as meat.

Of course, it would be chicken that would first come to mind when this is mentioned. But to Ilonggos, Inasal , is a generic term to food items which have been broiled using local skewers, most famous of which is the barbecue stick made of bamboo. From chicken and pork to innards and seafoods, one can find them in almost every corner in the city. Innovations now include frozen meat like hotdog and the like. But was surely was astonishe to have seen (and tasted) "hotdog BUN inasal" in boracay few years ago, also being basted with the meat inasal marinade.

Combining much loved pasalubong items, by the looks of it, Barquiron is just small barquillos filled with polvoron. Comes in, they say, different lavours like cashew, pandan but still they taste the same. Almost every pasalubong shops has their own version. There's even an SM Bonus brand. Glad to know they tapped an Ilonggo brand for this one, Rewels of Guimaras.

As a kid, egg crackers were regarded as my get-well-soon cookie for I was almost always given this whenever I was sick. Not that it has medicinal properties, it's just that, it's plain enough not to complicate things. Thanks to JD for this one though moist bakeries have their own version.

When ever we have miki at home, making our own batchoy comes naturally. The broth conveniently made with beef cubes, onions and some guinamos, if available, seasoned with pepper. Sliced pork, liver, even ground meat or shrimps complete this soup best-served hot topped with fried garlic and onion leaves.

Iloilo's version of some of the Philippine native delicacies, include ibos, suman latik (ibos with sweetened coconut) and puto manapla of the Negros Occidental town of the same name (really loved their ube puto.) Ibos, Nang Palang's buko pie and Baye-baye