FLAVOURS OF ILOILO

Breakthrough Restaurant in Villa Arevalo has perfected the art of leisure gastronomy. From the ambient beach-side location to the delectable food they serve - life seems to stop whenever one dines beside the beach. The cabanas are my favorite location for they bring one closer to the sea and as if having a personal space amidst the throng of hungry people. Of course, there are duyans which makes a perfect stop after being filled with the delectable Ilonggo dishes and cuisine dished up by Breakthrough. Their specialty is the Managat fish - the tail's grilled and the head part ends up in a soup whether sinigang or just plain sinabawan. They have a live tank where fishes, crustaceans and shellfishes are in a death row of sorts as customers can pick their choice and have them on their plates a few minutes after. A recent discovery were the "krusan" crabs. I have no idea if this is the right term and I just deduced they are called as...

Before it was called Santa Barbara, historical accounts say it was named  catmon , as this variety of trees were landmarks in the route up Central Panay. Katmon (Family: Dilleniaceae , Synonyms: Dilenia speciosa , other names: Bihis, kulammbug, palali ) has thick foliage and distinctly big white flowers that eventually becomes round fruits. The fruit is covered with almost overlapping sort of dry skin that eventually becoems fleshy as it nears the core. What remains of the flower can still be found inside making it attractive but it reminds me of rambutan in some ways. It then becomes pulpy but look at those pulp so big that it puts pomelo and other citrus to shame. The sample fruit I got seemed to be still not ripe (I assume) that it wasn't that juicy and looks like a squashed bean. The fruit is sour but refreshing - my tastebuds likened the taste to kamias with hints of green apple and like the pomelo it becomes sweet at some certain ...

What makes this pan de sal interesting is the "prefix" pre-war that  got me very curious then when Deco's Lapaz batchoy started offering them years ago, along side with another iconic bread - pan de sal ni Pa-a.  It was only during the 70's that the sweet kind of pan de sal came to the gastronomic consciousness of the Filipinos. Good thing that there are still bakeries here in Iloilo that makes the original pan de sal and among them is the Los Filipinos Bakery along Iznart Street across the Iloilo Central market. Each costs PhP 1 and it is among the most compact pan de sals I've tried and perfect with soups like Lapaz batchoy.

This is ILOILO and it's Dinagyang Festival 2020  Centered on the theme " Perfect Vision: Celebrating the Ilonggo Spirit in Honor of Senior Santo Niño ", it promises a lot of fun, faith, fiesta and FOOD!  And this is what it's all about - a food guide to the best of Iloilo. As the streets are turned into party places, connecting with the flavorsof Iloilo will certainly make your Dinagyang experience a gastronomically memorable one. And it starts with a sip of LAPAZ BATCHOY.

Annie's Place along Villa beach in Arevalo had me "with a plate of kinilaw". It's the best tasting fish kinilaw I had in years. Actually it was the vinegar concoction that made it the bomb! Its sour then becomes "fruity" sweet despite the presence of onions, chilis and ginger. I suspect they add an "atsara" concoction to create such delectable melange of flavours that even non kinilaw eaters will surely love.  It was so good that it made me almost forget my misadventure in going to Annie's Place. I took the right jeepney and the right route but had sort of dilemma when I got off and saw the sign to be "Annie's and Juaning's".  As I entered, it was a typical scene of beachfront restaurants - bamboos everywhere and a display of their offerings line up the sides. Chicken barbecue, pork barbcue, liempo, isaw and my favorite - chicken liver. There were also sibingan (blue marlin), bangus, squid and ...

Happy New Year 2020! Not only a New Year but also a new decade as we start the 20s of the 3rd millenium! So how was your Media Noche to welcome this new era? Ours was just simple but with some Googling, it may have looked a little grander compared to our previous preparations. It started with sausages I bought from Iloilo Supermart - 2pcs for around PhP 130, so I got 4 different variants. I wanted to recreate a simple grazing table or maybe a cheeseboard to have something new this time compared to last Christmas' Noche Buena set up . So I arranged them on a board together with some ham and Queso de Bola plus so breads from Tinapayan Bakeshop. It was a good thing I got two loaves of French Bread despite the bulkiness of bringing it home. It gave some flair to the experiment I did. It is basically just a sausage platter patterned after the cheeseboard or some grazing table set-up. Assorte...