A traditional soup dish of Western Visayas, chicken binakol, is a simple chicken soup made special by the addition of coconut water and coconut meat. Thus the broth has sweetness into it yet still savoury because of the chicken and other ingredients. Moreso, if one uses free range chicken or Bisaya as the locals call these organic fowls. It also adds more native flavour if cooking is done the traditional way, that is all the ingredients are placed inside a cleaned bamboo, covered and placed on fire. The natural juices of the bamboo adds some more uniqueness to the dish. So, how about some chicken binakol ...
It's not Catbalogan nor Katagalugan, it's CA-TA-LU-GAN, Catalugan. I also had the same problem when I was a kid when reading and remembering the name of this bread. But the many years of enjoying this specialty from Tibiao Bakery, I think I have it in me. So what is catalugan? It's basically a filled bread and like what you see, it has more filling that the "bread" itself. Tibiao Bakery makes the more "high end" catalugan as they are big, individually wrapped and deliciously addicting. Smaller bakeshops also make catalugan but its just the regular "one of those" breads. But this one from Tibiao is worth every "bit and morsel". For around 12 each (few years back it was only PhP 10), this bite size bread is heavy as the filling is a compact and flavouful blend of "secrets" for this one had no ingredients listed on its packaging. So I can only assume what they are everytime I am ...
