FLAVOURS OF ILOILO

A quick 2-hour trip to Guimaras sideligted yesterday's itinerary. Mainly went to the Provincial Capitol complex and the Museum plus, ofcourse, some goodies on the way home. Two boat rides plus a couple of jeepney rides and finally goodies all worth less than a hundred pesos. Kasuy, cassava chips and bandi-kasuy

An exceprt from MENU :BLOODY GOOD By Margaux Salcedo, Contributor Philippine Daily Inquirer Posted date: November 02, 2008 ..... In Iloilo, they use chicken blood instead. Ilongga chef Pauline Gorriceta-Banusing shares that they use native chicken, which Iloilo is best known for, then serve it with puto manapla , also a white, bite-sized starchy puto. The color of this dinuguan version is on the brownish side instead of black, and the texture is much thinner because chicken blood is not as thick as pork blood. Chef Pauline theorizes, “I think our being a ‘manokan city’ explains why we do chicken dinuguan instead of pork.” Speaking of chicken, I remember a relative, who owns a poultry, always cook chicken dinuguan whenever they have an "ihaw" (Ilonggo term for "katay"). That was really good and unforgettable (proven by this this post). Very light since they are made entirely of, what else, but chicken. Blood, meat, entrails, whatever.... Finally, I was able ...

After watching the latest installment of the 007 movies, Quantum of Solace on its opening day, I decided to find out why both Cecile and Inday Hami rave about Balbi's . It was Cecile who first mentioned it in the comments section and luckily Inday Hami blogged about it so it already had a bull's eye mark for me. Around 4pm I was at their snack shop and ordered the items which Inday Hami mentioned to be favorites . I got pancit palabok, ensaimada and cheese roll. It was then a usual clicks and flashes scenario while waiting for my order. I can’t believe that this snack shop is almost 50 years old for it was only days ago that I got to know about it. The place is small, only 5 tables, making a homey and unpretentious ambiance. They only have a few items on their wall menu plus some turo-turo items for lunch with some breads and pastries on display. My order arrived, the palabok looked and smelled enticing plus the breads were inviting. It was a good thing that I was the only c...

Its Dinagyang season and my blog expresses it with food with these edible ati ati headresses ! This is actually the mother of all headress since its around twice the size of the others. A 2x3 inch cellcard was placed for for size comparison. A closer look to reveals its yummy components . Making up these headresses are the following: Balasan bingka and halfmoon bread Lubid-lubid and pastillas Bandi; peanuts in hardened caramel Principe and banadas cookies Pandan and carrot baruillos plus yemas Pastillas and ube barquillos Ube piaya

An interesting variation to the usual loaf bread. Tinapayan makes it "more edible" on its own. Though the bread itself artificially colored but those are real ube swirling in the center. Their chocolate swirl was so good that I finished it first before even thinking of taking a photo. Hopefully I can complete them all. Comes in ube, cheese, chocolate, monggo and nutty choco flavours.

Made with ground dried cacao seeds and sugar, "tsokolate" have this native feel and taste. Usually its either you drink it or eat it.A cup of hot native tsokolate is one good way of starting the morning but if you're not at it, making champorado seems second nature.