ILOILO FOOD TRIP

There's an unwritten rule in our house when it comes to leftover grilled or fried fish. The former is cooked Linagpang for the next meal and the latter becomes Cardillo or Sarciado. Yet most of the time, we tend to freshly grill or fry fish to have any of these recipes. What sets apart the latter two recipes is that cardillo has additional beaten eggs in the sauce while the sarciado has none. The former can have more additional vegetables like pechay, cabbage, malunggay, etc while the latter is a lot simpler with the taste mainly from the tomatoes and garnish. The fish we use are those that can be fried fully to almost tostado to give the dish a texture variation. So choose the fish you love and the one that taste good when fried to a crisp. So let's start making SARCIADONG ISDA

I love Pork Sinigang! I mean, who doesn't indulge in the goodness of the sour broth with tender pork chunks with those jiggly fatty portion! It is always a rice magnet for me but to counter all these cholesterollliffic and carbs intake when enjoying this Pinoy favorite, I love having it with much vegetables as I can. When I order sinigang in foodcourts, I often have a side order of adobong kangkong which I make to "vegetize" this pork dish. And when I cook one at home, it is always overwhelming with vegetables like kangkong, radish, eggplant and okra among others. So let's start the pot boiling for our Pork Sinigang. Here's the recipe for Sinigang na Baboy Ingredients 1 kilo Pork, cut into bite-size chunks 4 tomatoes, quartered 3 medium sized onions, halved Souring ingredient (boiled tamarind extract, tamarind mix, batwan, calamansi,etc) Patis (fish sauce) or salt 2 "bundles"  kangkong  (you can use more bundle if yo

There are many ways of cooking this favorite Pinoy pork belly dish and just like it's namesake (well, almost) lechon , this crunchy pork belly dish needs no introduction. One can have it "very deep fried" that each bite sized portion is crunchy or just fry a big portion then enjoy some juicy bites in between. The mere mention of lechon kawali  brings to the senses the crunch, the crispness, the aroma and the taste of this well-loved Pinoy favorite. Now, it's time to make one and enjoy all the goodness!  Here's the basic recipe for Lechon Kawali

Filipinos love coffee so much that in 2021, Fitch Solutions sees the Philippines consuming about 7358.2 60 kilogram bags of coffee by 2025. The country’s coffee industry continues to grow and whether its’ hot or cold, Filipinos seem to have an insatiable thirst.  As people today juggle a fast-paced lifestyle, noticeably, there is a  high demand for delicious coffee and a cozy coffee shop that feels like a second home.  About two decades earlier, Arlene Juan Tong and her husband already anticipated how Ilonggos love for coffee would grow into a lifestyle and founded Bluejay Coffee & Company. Bluejay Coffee and Company is the first-ever coffee shop in SM City Iloilo that has been operating for more than a decade now with an Espresso machine coffee and delectable food offerings.  "Bluejay was born in 2004 out of our own yearning for a good coffee shop. Back then, there was no place in Iloilo that sold coffee made from an espresso machine. As someone with a distribution business,

I was craving for Lomi but all I had were mostly ingredients for Pancit Molo, so I decided to combine the specialties of Iloilo and Batangas into one, I must say delicious, noodle dish. Though, it's not really the authentic recipe for the Batangueno soup but it satisfied my lomi cravings. And it's very easy to make despite how heavy and complicated the resulting dish becomes. --  It's more of the fact that the noodles used are Pancit Molo wrappers and meat are the filling but you can also use dried flat noodles and plain ground meat. Here's a recipe for my Pancit Molo ala Lomi.

Made with grated  balinghoy  (cassava) mixed with coconut milk and meat plus sugar and other flavorings, ALUPI is one native delicacy that is often most missed. This kakanin is then wrapped in banana leaves and steamed then its ready to be eaten as an all around snack. Most places in the Philippines have their own version of this cassava-based delicacy. In most parts of Western Visayas, this native delicacy is called alupi (or alupe ). So , what is this native delicacy called in your place? Here's an easy recipe in making Alupi or Cassava Suman

Grilled stuffed squid is one of the most inviting grilled seafood there is. Be it in a seafood restaurant serving grilled specialties or just in the comfort of your home, the gastronomic lure of inihaw na pusit is too tempting to resist. The preparation is just simple - just stuff the squid with tomatoes and onions , add seasoning and then grill until ready. The trickiest part when cooking squid in general is how to avoid making it rubbery as overcooking it will make it that way. Here's a basic Grilled Stuffed Squid recipe that you can make easily at home. Ingredients Squid, medium to large size (just big enough to be stuffed) Tomato, diced/chopped (enough to stuff the squid) White Onion, diced/chopped (enough to stuff the squid) Onion leaves Salt  Black pepper  Dip ( Calamansi, sliced Tomatoes, sliced onions, sliced Chilis, Vinegar, Soy sauce, Sugar ) Procedure Clean the squid, inside out. Remove the ink sac (you can use this to make your a

One of the first questions always asked about Pancit Molo is " Where's the Pancit ?". With pancit as a sort of "prefix" to the name of the dish, first timers always for the noodle-like component of the dish. It's then explained that the pancit is actually the molo ball wrappers which is basically of the same mix as any pancit/noodles. Pancit Molo is more of a household specialty and the recipe varies from household to household. From the meat filling mix to the soup, there could be a hundred and one ways of making pancit molo. Here's a simple  Pancit Molo recipe.

I grew up knowing this dish as paklay. It has become one of my favorite ways of cooking bamboo shoots ( tambo ) aside from making ginat-an nga tambo . I just love the taste of the young bamboo shoots without any overpowering flavour and the texture too. The recipe is simple and can be tweaked according to your taste and available ingredients. Here's the recipe for Paklay .

Ilonggos love pinamalhan using almost any kind of fish with this quick and easy recipe.  Rooting from the word "mala" meaning dry, PINAMALHAN is an Ilonggo style of cooking fish where it is stewed until it becomes ( almost) dry. The cooking process is very simple - it just involves "stewing" the fish in vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, peppers and other spices until dry then add a bit of oil. Among the fishes that often makes the PINAMALHAN plate are bangus, salmonite , bilong-bilong, sapsap, abo, lupoy and aloy, among others. So let's start stewing and enjoy PINAMALHAN. Here's a basic Pinamalhan nga Isda Recipe Ingredients   1/2 kilo fish (or adjust to the number of pieces) 1 cup native vinegar (adjust to cover all the fish) 2 tablespoons soy sauce (adjustable, optional)  1 medium size onion, sliced 2 pcs siling pansigang (adjustable, optional) 6 cloves garlic, crushed (adjustable) 1 thumb size ginger cut into thin slices Salt and pep

Ensuring the freshness and quality of food items everyday and making diners happy are key to Ocean City’s iconic status and enduring success for 30 years now. With more Ilonggos patronizing Ocean City, the seafood restaurant grew bigger from a 20-man team to 68 employees now, serving more mouth-watering meals in a total of seven branches, two of which are at SM City Iloilo.  Convinced that SM’s high foot traffic is good for the business, they first opened a kiosk in SM City Iloilo’s food court in 1999 and then a stand-alone seafood restaurant in Southpoint, which opened in 2016.  According to its second-generation leader, Eric Borromeo, delivering consistent freshness, quality and customer satisfaction were closely tied to the fact that they are very hands-on when running the business and that local ingredients are mainly sourced from public markets. It used to be that he was the one who personally went to the market early in the morning to catch the best ingredients.  “I used to go to