FLAVOURS OF ILOILO

The mere mention of Kong Kee Restaurant only brings one thing in mind - sio pao! This iconic food shop along Iloilo City's heritage district had been making delicious sio pao ever since I can remember. Prior to this, my last visit had me indulge in their popular Pancit Sun yat Sen to satisfy my curiosity and of course blog about it. Recently, for my column in The News Today , I found myself walking along JM Basa Street to have another go with one of the most popular sio paos in Iloilo City. I've been seeing and reading about the recent renovation at Kong Kee that this visit was like hitting two birds with one stone - but that time it was actually eating two sio paos during one visit on top of getting the feel of the new ambiance. And yes I had my share of surprises that time. T he interiors greatly improved though it had still signs and feel of the old restaurant. Colorful and modern accents on the ceiling contrast their typical Chinese fixtures. There's still the sign...

One of the better commercial bakeshops in the city, Tibiao is actually a name of a town in the province of Antique. It has a wide range of breads, pasalubong items, pastries and cakes with branches in SM malls. Some stand alone branches serve short orders like pancit molo , hamburger and one of their best selling items, sio pao. Royal Bibingka

Deocampo is a brand that is very much associated with barquillos. Actually the complete brandname is called"Deocampo Barquillos". Aside from their famous barquillos and other pasalubong items, they also have sio pao which many revere. Curiosity made me try it before and I had mixed reactions. It's of one the graciously filled sio paos I have tried yet it was due to the extenders you can actually see and taste. Can be sure if it's potato, kamote or whatever. Yet I still love the taste and the totality of it. This one may not shot how gracious the filling is or it's quality since this one's just got out of the fridge. So I now have a reason to buy a pair or more soon.

Almost as famous as its namesake festival, chicken sio pao from Dinagyang Refreshment is truly worth the trip to this hole-in-the-wall foodshop. Both of its more convenient branches are located within the MaryMart Center but you will surely have second thoughts if its really worth it since ambiance is never heard of (except the one in the food court). Their main? branch though is located in the district of Villa. Dinagayang Refreshemtn also have shorts orders from batchoy to spaghetti, and turo turo items for lunch and dinner, to chocolate cakes and brazo de mercedes for desserts. But it is their sio pao, especially the chicken variety that made this foodshop stamp its foot in the very competitve gastronomical scene of Iloilo.

Hamburgers made this snack house famous then, but now it offers more than those patty filled buns. With short orders like pancit molo, bihon and spaghetti to their own version of rice meals (with chicken, pork, etc) to their specialties like camaron relleno, morcon and meatballs, it now has gone a long way since then. Even if competition nearby heats up (a fastfood and chicken barbecue store) loyal patrons keep coming back for more. Forget the ambiance when dining here since little attention is being paid to this aspect. If there's one thing that makes me go back there, it’s their Queen sio pao and her court (of sio paos, the King, Jumbo and regular). As they say, The queen has it all; chicken and pork adobo, ham, bacon, Chinese sausage, bacon & hard boiled egg and it's a big as a plate. There's a catch though, it's only available 3 days a month.

Jiecel and Thea's is famous for their siopao and siomai. This snackshop in Mandurriao they say has a cook that came from Ma Mon Luk - a famous Chinese resto in Manila specializing in sio pao. This sio pao is dry - both the pao and teh chicken adobo filling. RATING 3.0 of out 5.0 Kusina Tsina's asado sio pao realy looks like it has been filled with chopped pork asado. I found it weird to see such a reddish sio pao. Their dough is somewhat like that of Tibiao's. RATING 2.0 out of 5.0 Another royalty from Roberto's is their King sio pao. It has almost the same filling as the Queen counterpart but instead of bacon it has ham. Also it is readily available anytime but is much smaller than the Queen and cheaper by 2 pesos. RATING 3.5 out of 5.0. Believe it or not, this is Yok Pek sio pao. Thought to have disappeared forever, Yok Pek survives but regrettably striving in this hotly contested sio pao industry. But would you believe this sio pao tastes really good. Got this on...

When talks zero in on sio mai and sio pao (in Iloilo City), it would be incomplete when one snack shop is not mentioned. Jiecel and Thea's Refreshment had long been synonymous with these two Chinese delights and finally, I was able to personally visit the place, tasted their specialties and of course blogged about it. Just a simple menu with three of the specialties; mami, sio pao and sio mai. It was a short ride from the "Carlos" junction to this snack shop and even though I theoretically know where it was, I was still all eyes during the my travel. But luckily they had a very big signage that proclaimed "We serve the BEST mami, sio pao and sio mai in town". Now that got me gastronomically excited. Simple interiors of Jiecel and Thea's Refreshment makes you conentrate more on the food rather than the ambiance. It was around 1030am when I finally got there to see a sort of family brunch on going occupying half of the snack shop. But fortunately they were a...

Courtesy of CASA BALUARTE Often the pitstop of Ilonggos craving for sio pao, Kong Kee Restaurant along the heritage district of Iloilo City is dubbed as the restaurant that sio pao built. This old school Chinese restaurant has long been a family business, and the tradiion still lives on as family members and helpers work hand in hand, in and around the restaurant. Their ambiance is very antiquated from their mirrored walls to their plastic covered mantel laden tables to their monoblock chairs. Most of the time, its these take outs that makes our restaurant memories.