Skip to main content

A new flavour for the Dinagyang 2011 Food Festival

Aside from the dances, drums and colorful costumes, Dinagyang also means food and Iloilo City has a lot to offer during this 3-day event. The festival brings them to the streets with the much awaited Dinagyang Food Festival. For four days, major streets in the city are lined with food stalls and kiosks that everywhere one turns it all about food.

As this
article states, major streets in Iloilo City will have a food festival there will be plenty of places to indulge in during Dinagyang 2011.

ILOILO City's world-famous Dinagyang Festival will turn the spotlight on Ilonggo cuisine this year.

Tourists are encouraged to try chicken barbecue the Ilonggo way and other tasty local dishes during the festival.

There are also the world-famous Ilonggo delicacies and other concoctions
to bring home after enjoying the Dinagyang ati-atihan and Kasadyahan competitions.

Not only that. The 1st Iloilo Convention and Visitors Bureau (ICVB) International Food Festival 2011 will attempt to dominate major streets in the city on January 20-23, to showcase international dishes for the festival revelers and visitors.

Similarly, members of the Iloilo Hotels, Restaurants and Resorts Association (IHRRA) will also hold a food festival on the same date on top of food festivals hosted by other beverage and wine companies and shopping malls.

Not to be outdone, the Iloilo Provincial Government will hold yet another food festival at the capitol grounds, where the city's and the province's restaurants will compete with one another.

Organization-sponsors for the food festival will try to outdo each other with their best menus, according to city tourism officer Ben Jimena. This way, the food festival areas will augment the food strips along the major streets in downtown Iloilo.

Meanwhile, the City Council approved the city tourism office's request to close off the food festival sites. From the original site on Delgado Street beside the Amigo mall, the expanded food festival area will now cover other streets considered as routes of the Dinagyang parade.

The ICVB, headed by former tourism undersecretary Salvador Sarabia Jr., will hold the first international food festival at the half-lane of Ledesma St., starting from the corner of Valeria to the corner of Quezon St.

Meanwhile, IHRRA, headed by Dr. Sandra Sarabia Gomez, will hold its festival at the half-lane of Ledesma from Iznart to Quezon St.

Road closure will also be implemented at Delgado St. from Iznart to Quezon for the food festival and from Ledesma to Valeria St. until Gen. Luna to accommodate the participating restaurants' kiosks.

A food strip will also be in place at the long strip of Iznart from Ledesma to the provincial capitol area.

Jimena said the food festival area is a testament to the Ilonggo hospitality and love for good food, which visitors need to taste. (Lydia C. Pendon)

Popular posts from this blog

An Ilonggo favorite - Valenciana

Found in almost all occasions like fiesta, birthdays, reunions and others, Ilonggos really love valenciana because most if not all have grown accustomed of having it in special gatherings at home.  A complete " go, grow and glow " dish because it has the carbohydrates, protein and vitamins and minerals in just one spoonful, Valenciana is really an " occasional dish ".  Here's the recipe for Valenciana

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...

An Ilonggo favorite: Pancit Molo

Named after one of Iloilo City’s districts, Pancit Molo is one of the more identifiable pancit dishes in the country. It stands out uniquely among the noodle dishes mainly because of its non-traditional pancit look. It is a derivative of the Chinese wonton (filled dumplings) made into a soup.  One of the first questions always asked is "Where's the Pancit?". With pancit as a sort of "prefix" to the name of the dish, first timers always for the noodle-like component of the dish. It's then explained that the pancit is actually the molo ball wrappers which is basically of the same mix as any pancit/noodles. Pancit Molo is more of a household specialty and the recipe varies from household to household. From the meat filling mix to the soup, there could be a hundred and one ways of making pancit molo. Pancit Molo Filling I suggest to make this days before the actual cooking of pancit molo so that the flavours will be full....

Takway

The gabi (taro) is just one of those plants which is edible from "roots to tops". The most popular of which is the tuber part which is used in a variety of dishes and mostly in combination with coconut milk. Its leaves, of course, is the main ingredient of a Bicol specialty, laing . It is dried then chopped and sauteed with other ingredients including, again, coconut milk. Then there is takway . The local term for its tendrils/runner, that part which is torn between being a stem or a root for it neither grows upwards nor downwards - it grows sideways . Scraped off of its outer skin, takway is often a key ingredient in vegetable dishes like laswa and the gabi tuber with coconut milk and local snails know as bago-ngon . It is also popular when cooked adobo style with guinamos , the local bago-ong . It is very popular in the region that even big supermarkets sell takway in style - cleaned and plastic wrapped in styro with some additions to make it easier to prepare. ...