Tinumok and Kandingga. Can you guess which part of the country these dishes come from? More dishes as clues - Tinutungan Manok and Kinunot. How about these final dishes - Laing and Bicol Express? Now you know that these are the part of the Bicolano food scene that sets our palate's on fire!
SM City Iloilo invited members of the Iloilo Bloggers for a gastronomic adventure showcasing SM Southpoint.
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| SM Southpoint is a great nightspot with its wide array or restaurants perfect to cap the day. |
The newest hang-out of the Ilonggos is an al fresco wing of the biggest mall in the region consisting of local and home grown restaurants and cafes as well new local and "imported" players in the food service industry. It's time to discover what SM Southpoint has to offer ...
Craving for those Bicolano specialties? There's no immediate need to visit the Bicol region (but I would love to do so) just to try them as Spicy Elements brings the famed (and flaming hot) Bicolano cuisine to the Iloilo gastronomy scene. With branches in Taytay in Metro Manila and in Cagayan de Oro, this grill-steaks and bar may seem very typical modern resto yet its menu is very extensive especially on Filipino cuisine.
Let's start with one of the the most popular Bicol Express - a stew made from long chilies (siling mahaba in Tagalog, ), coconut milk, shrimp paste or stockfish, onion, pork, and garlic (Wikipedia). Though this is already a modern adaptation of the local cuisine - Sinilihan, it still is a synonymous with Bicol. Spicy Elements' version is topped with a crunchy pork to give this spicy dish a resounding crunch!
More crunchy pork awaits you when you order Laing con Lechon. Laing is made with sun-dried gabi (taro) leaves cooked with coconut milk/cream and chillies. This becomes a delicious base dish which can be varied and by adding a variety meat and seafood and for Spicy Elements a few slices of Lechon Kawali did the trick.
But not all they serve are spicy hot Bicolano dishes, they also have lots of Filipino dishes too. And they also have Backribs and they're so deliciously tender you can just fork it down in a single slice. They also have steaks and sausages to please the carnivores.
New on the menu is Chicken Galantina. An adaptation of galantine, which is a French dish of de-boned stuffed meat, most commonly poultry or fish, that is poached and served cold. (Wikipedia). It might as well be a more complicated version of embutido as the meat filling is stuffed back into the whole chicken and cooked.
How about some Seafood Tortang Talong? It's the familiar eggplant omelette with a variety of seafood stuffed under the egg "blanket".
Here' another seafood - Crab Relleno. Savory crabmeat stuffed back into its shell then fried. I just love how flavorful it was even without dipping it in the sauce it came with.
Spicy Elements also doubles up as a bar wit live bands every Wednesday to Thursday starting past 8pm. Lots of booze are stock in the bar area yet it still maintains it family oriented feel as seen by the number of families having a dinner that time.
We were served two of there specialty drinks Elements Bullseye and Beergerita. The Bullseye makes you choose between two shots - light and dark. Choose one and the other one literally falls into the beer pitcher. You take the shot and use the fused beer as chaser. The Beergerita, on the other hand is beer-infused Margarita and it comes in a gigantic cocktail glass that's good for 2-3 pax.
Just click to enlarge the menu
I will end this SM Southpoint series with my Top 3 picks based on my personal taste. This is just limited on the food served to us during the food tasting and is not representative of the whole menu.
- Crab Relleno
- Bicol Express
- BackRibs
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