Cafe Laguna at SM City Iloilo

A popular Cebuano restaurant has now reached Iloilo. Cafe Laguna opened it's first branch in the Visayas (outside Cebu) at SM City Iloilo this week. Finally Ilonggos can now experience what made Cafe Laguna such a big hit in Cebu, starting from it's being a carenderia before to a place of fine dining now.

Here are some snippets of information from Cafe Laguna's website.

CAFÉ LAGUNA began as a labor of love for the urbina family. Coming from a long line of fine cooks, Lita Urbina decided to share her culinary talents with everyone. She got the love for cooking from her mother who owned a restaurant in Cartimar, Manila. As a young girl, she remembered being exposed to the restaurant business and how it was managed.With the help and encouragement of her family, Mrs. Urbina decided to open her own carenderia which served Filipino food with a distinctive taste incomparable to this day. Food was not only sumptuous but enkindled memories of homecooked meals shared with friends and family.CAFÉ LAGUNA started with 10 tables in an apartment she owned in Lahug. Mother's Best was the moniker she gave the fastfood which served only Filipino dishes. At the same time, it was a novelty; not many food outlets served Filipino dishes. Catering service menu includes European, American and other Asian dishes. >>> Read More

Photos courtesy of LABETH of Skyscrapercity forum

Ultimate Ilonggo Favorite: KBL Kadyos, Baboy, Langka

K.B.L. or Kadyos, Baboy, Langka is the ultimate favorite dish of most Ilonggos. It is also one of the most missed native dishes as kadyos and the souring ingredient, batwan , are hard to find when outside of the Ilonggo region. Basically, it is boiled/stewed pork dish owing its "deliciousness" to the combination of the soft and tender pork, the tamed sourness of batwan and the malinamnam na sabaw . One of the "secrets" of the malinamnamn na sabaw , is the fact that the pork, whether just the plain meat or pata (hocks) are first grilled or broiled. This gives the broth a rather smoky taste that makes it more appetizing.. Learn how to make the Ilonggo dish KBL (Kadyos, Baboy, at Langka) with the recipe below. Ingredients 1 kilo Pata (pork hocks) or pork cubes, GRILLED and sliced into bite size pieces 1 unripe Jack fruit, cubed 2 cups pigeon pea (kadyos) 6-8 pieces batwan fruit (or tamarind powder) 1 piece por...

Easy Century Tuna Recipes

If you're looking for simple, easy and delicious Century Tuna recipes online, congratulations, you've found it right here! How about spicy tuna sisig or tuna sinigang ? Maybe stir fried tuna with pickles or just yang chow fried rice . I love Century Tuna from its flakes in oil variety, the spicier the better, but when I discovered the versatility of its solid variant, it became an obsession. At first I was just into the usual tested recipes; pasta and sandwich filling, but then it got simpler – I just eat it straight from the can! Usually with a piece of bread or an apple. I just add a few drops of vinegar to spice it up a bit. Then came the experiments. Yup I got tired of that habit that one day, I decided to test my skills in the kitchen. Serendipity, you might call it yet most of them turned into good recipes that I have shared now and then. Satisfying my Palabok cravings had me experiment on this recipe on the spot. With Century Tuna in lieu of the us...

Lauya nga Pata sang Baboy

It was a typical fiesta scene in a barrio that I got to taste this cholesteroliffic and delicious pork dish. I can still vividly remember that decades old gastronomic memory - very tender and almost fall of the bone pata, vivid orange sour and sticky broth, large chunks of unripe langka; all in one big large kaldero ! And it's been really a while since I've tried to recreate that taste memory and a few days ago, it was worth another try. Here's my simple recipe for Pata Lauya

Kusay

Often mistaken to be, sounding-alike, as kinchay , kusay has a very distinct aroma and flavour. A rather unfamiliar herb mostly anywhere, my Tagalog officemate call this as sibuyas na mura and in Manila groceries labeled as kutchay . It do looks like onion chives but kusay is flat unlike the hollow chives. We have kusay planted in our backyard for occasional uses like soup garnishing. However, it often takes a trip to the Central Market to buy them in large quantities if ever we make Pancit Molo since it is an important ingredient in the filling mixture and as garnishing.

Kalkag

I don't know how it came to be called as such but to Ilonggos, these are tiny dried shrimps. Methinks its actually shrimp fry or baby shrimps. Mostly used as garnishing over kalo-kalo (fried rice); however it can be of many uses depending on the imagination of the cook. One of the more common ways of using kalkag is making a torta of out of it. Just mix it with some seasoning, egg and flour then fry. Or just sprinkle them over laswa or any vegetable dish, as garnishing and mild flavouring as well. Most of the time though, I just heat them over a pan (without oil) or just mixrowave, for around half a minute and mix it with rice.

FLAVOURS OF ILOILO

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