FLAVOURS OF ILOILO

Every market day, that's Tuesday and Friday in my hometown of Santa Barbara, Iloilo, the tinda is teeming with all the wares, products and goods from all over the province. One of my favorite sections of the town market would be the native delicacies area where in I can have a lot of food finds. Like this lot for example, my walking around got me some colored puto , suman latik , alupe, buti, bingka, puto manapla, kutsinta and baye-baye among others. Now, which of these native delicacies you haven't tasted for a long time?

Though bukayo refers generally to sweetened coconut strips, I can't help but refer this sweetened squash as such. Unlike the one I had before ( dulce de kalabasa ), this squash delight is easier to prepare. The squash was cut into thin strips then boiled in water with sugar and maybe with some vanilla. There's no mashing involved since the finished product still shows the kalabasa strips but just softer and a lot sweeter. Depending on several factors - squash variety, heat exposure, size, etc; the finished product would show variation too. For this particular recipe, the strips had a sort of "gelatiney" texture that one can still have a bite. The best way of serving the sweet is "fresh from the fridge" and could give haleyang ube a run for its money as halo halo topping or just another sweetened "vegetable".

Care for some delectable cheesecakes? If it looks as appetizing as this, you surely will! I got this galore of cheesecakes at Heavenly Cafe and Pastries located at GT Plaza Mall and good thing they had a lot of variants to choose from that time. So instead of having a whole cake of just one flavour I got 8 and it was visually and gastronomically delightful. The idea came when we had a food tasting session a few weeks ago with ms Christy, the chef and owner of Heavenly. To highlight that food gathering, she let us taste all her cheesecakes variants by presenting to us all the available flavours in one colorful presentation. That lit a bulb in our heads and the rest is, as they say, a yummy history! And here are the flavors that made my "cheesecake galore wheel"... Caramel Pecan Cheesecake with the goodness of caramel and the crunch of a pecan nut Heavenly Topped with special whipped cream and blueberyy. Hershey's Chocolatey goodness not only on the top...

Aside from inasal, another popular and (almost) famous chicken dish from Western Visayas is chicken binakol. It's basically like tinola but what makes it unique is the addition of coconut water and meat. Thus it gives a more refreshing, lighter and sweeter flavour to the dish. Now most restaurants serve binakol and claims being authentic but in fact what they do is throw in some chicken and vegetables and put generous amount of coconut meat and water for their "binakol". Like this one I had last week, the essence of the native dish was literally lost as it "bastardized" the recipe by adding bell peppers among others. I love bell peppers but NOT with my binakol! The broth was literally coconut water for I never tasted even hints of salt and other seasoning. But it was a well presented chicken "binakol" and is very photogenic but NOT the real thing.

Which would you prefer -prune cake,  black forest or death by chocolate? These are just among the many specialty cakes Sweet Treats Bakeshop at Amigo Plaza Mall has to offer. My taste memories of Sweet Treats date back in the late 80s when the hotel/mall was opened and it was under the tutelage of Chef Maridel Uygongco. Salads are the first that comes to mind upon the mention of their old shop plus their very popular death by chocolate cake. Aside from their "standing room only" restaurant, they have this bakeshop that finally found it palce in the center of the old mall. Hmmm, bichocoy, spanish bread, penny roll and more. When the hotel and mall had some facelift a few years ago, Sweet Treats jumped from one location to another until they finally found their current locations now. Choco Chip Cookies A special food tasting session was arranged by Sweet Treats for the members of the Iloilo Bloggers a few before Christmas. And I instantly loved their brazo de merced...

A perfect ending to a sumptuous meal at Jo's Chicken Inato is their "gourmet" version of this Pinoy smorgasbord dessert. Aptly called Buko Halo, it comes in a coconut shell with all the coco meat mixed with all the ingredients like saba, kamote, gelatin, ube halaya, rice crispies, ripe jackfruit, milk and their home-made ice cream. The sugar comes separate, which I like since, I'd always request not to have one in other restos. This big serving of buko halo costs PhP75 (if my memory serves me right) but the taste memories it bring back - the college years where it become out sort of hang-out , is priceless! 

With these mouthwatering cakes on display at Tinapayan bakeshop at The Atrium mall, one can surely be caught in the middle of the mad holidays rush. But it surprisingly, it wasn't the scenario that greeted me when I dropped by the Atrium during Christmas and New Year's Eves.    Instead, there was a special line set up for those who were just there to buy the cakes for their respective Noche Buenas and Media Noches. Snaking through a portion of the bakery was an organized set up that even with all the Ilonggos reaching up to main mall of The Atrium as what my fellow food blogger, Greg of Cafe Ilonggo witnessed, it didn't took more than 20 minutes for the line to move from start to end. This is in line with Tinapayan's policy of no reservations during the holiday rush as these would take up much space in their coolers so cakes and other desserts come and go from the actually baking facility in the mall to the bakeshop and into the customer's hands.  As...