With seven entries making a total of 1862 cups of La Paz batchoy, it was indeed a cook off of big and gastronomic proportions as Ilonggos witnessed a culinary event like no other. A culinary competition searching for the Best Tasting La Paz batchoy and Largest Serving “batchoyan” was held last Friday aiming to score a spot for Iloilo on the culinary map.
SM Hypermarket Iloilo, on its first anniversary, sets it sight on creating a milestone by creating a new record for Iloilo’s most famous delicacy.
The retail giant gathered several snack shops, carinderias and caterers among others to concoct their own recipe for La Paz batchoy sand serve the most number of cups ever to be served from a single place at any one time in the province. From the familiar to almost unknown, teams from all across Iloilo converged that afternoon to showcase not only their best recipes but also their determination to outdo each other in making the most number of servings.
Tasked to select the Best Tasting batchoy were three of Iloilo City’s food experts– Jose Ramlo Villaluna (far left) , chef instructor at University of San Agustin, Carlo Treñas of Carlos Bakeshop (rightmost) and Mr. Ruel de la Peña(center).
I was most familiar with Inggo’s Batchoyan which aroused my curiosity when I learned they are trying to wrestle the “original” tag from Deco’s since they had been serving La Paz batchoy since the 1920s. I had the chance to talk to the team, who both remembered me as the guy who took pictures of their batchoy a few months back. I found out that they only learned about the contest on that day, just a few hours before the event. They had to close shop early and prepared the necessary things. Though they didn’t win at least it was a good publicity for their batchoy – which was too salty that time, maybe from the long exposure of the chicharon on the broth.
Francisco’s Refreshment and Catering Services served their batchoy in petite bowls that gave me an impression of having to eat a small order of batchoy with all the ingredients almost stuffed down just to make it fit in the bowl. Their batchoy has the familiar taste of an out of town batchoy or just out of the usual La Paz batchoy taste.
NT Eatery’s entry meanwhile reminded of me Ted’s Oldtimer at the Diversion road branch where a deeper ceramic bowl is used. Thus the art of batchoy presentation – with the noodles, pork, intestines, liver, etc neatly arranged on top of each other, is quite lost in gastronomic translation. And I think they were the only one who served it with fresh eggs.
Uhnie and Uno’s batchoy was first to catch my attention as they were the first to assemble a bowl of their La Paz batchoy. It was like there’s no tomorrow since the bowl was almost overflowing with the basic ingredients and by the looks of it, it’s “sulit” or as Kris Aquino explains “You get more than what you pay for”.
Tata’s Batchoy looked elegant in those black plastic deep bowls and it was among the better presented as one can see the neatness from the preparation to the actual presentation. One has the impression that the whole bowl – from top to bottom, is filled with the batchoy components that there’s no room for the hot caldo.
The batchoy from Saff came in moderation, a moderate size bowl with a moderate amount of ingredients. But one will certainly cannot overlook or I would say, “oversmell” the aroma of their batchoy as I was drawn to it the moment I passed by. Too bad I wasn’t able to taste their special recipe and “hanggang tingin at amoy na lang ako”
And finally, another familiar and seemingly “deceiving” entry is from the town of Lambunao – Lorlour Pizza. It’s a snack shop with pizza as the specialty and batchoy seems to be just a side item – hey, you gotta have batchoy when in Iloilo. I always pass by their branch beside CPU and I never knew they had batchoy, until that day.
From their team cheer that got the loudest response from the crowd to the almost clockwork like preparation and they had the best presented batchoy. It was like as if it was in a fine dining restaurant – the “bowling”[using the term “plating” is not really politically right ] , the arrangement, the way each ingredient was sliced and prepared to the overall presentation, one can almost say it’s delicious even without tasting it.
And it could have set another standard for batchoy that others will soon emulate as Lorlour Pizza emerged as the Grand Winner for the SM Hypermarket Supersized La Paz Batchoy Cook Off romping off not only with the Best Tasting La Paz Batchoy but also the entry with the Most Number of Servings, official count at 546.
PROUD WINNERS SPO2 Regie Navarra and his wife Marilou of Lorlour Pizza
Iloilo is among the four places in the country where this Supersized Cook Off series was held. Just like La Paz batchoy for Iloilo, Pampanga had set a record for preparing Sisig, Batangas claimed a Bulalo record and for Cebu – a Bibingka record.
