Puto from Laguna

On the way back from Tagaytay, we decided to have lunch at one of the stops along the SLEX. After our quick meal, we went to check out stuff for pasalubong. We had only bought pineapples by the roadside in Alfonso, Cavite but not everyone likes pineapples as pasalubong. Instead of pasalubong, we ended up buying some snacks and puto for merienda when we reached home.

The rice cake (puto) came in a box. Puto sold in markets usually come in a paper tray wrapped in cling wrap. In some, they are wrapped in banana leaves.

Here's a look at the puto, which is a "putong bigas" meaning its made entirely of rice. Note that other puto can be a mix of rice and regular or typical flour.

Close-up of the puto

The puto was okay but I do have my suki for puto at the Antipolo Market where I can also get the "putong bigas". I would say that the one we get at the market in Antipolo is of the same if not better quality. I wouldn't mind buying this for personal consumption especially when on travel.

 

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Crazy about baklava

I first tasted baklava when I was student in Japan in the 1990s. I recall one or two occasions when students from the Arab countries or Turkey would have brought these as their contribution to pot luck events. Later, we enjoyed baklava from a Greek neighbor in a village we resided at for almost a decade. And so we were delighted to have been gifted with a box of baklava from the Ambassador of the State of Palestine! The ambassador visited UP and distributed these to his hosts. We opened the box on the eve of Eid L Fitre (end of Ramadan) and enjoyed it as dessert after meals.

The packaging gave a preview of what's to be expected inside the box.

Details on the baklava at the back of the package.

Ingredients include only two nuts - pistachios and cashews.

Nutrition facts

We were very pleasantly surprised by the variety of baklava upon opening the box. It certainly did not disappoint as the contents are consistent with the images on the box.

These were a delightful dessert but I wouldn't be surprised if people instead snacked on these. One can easily indulge or over-indulge over these baklava.

I kept the box as a souvenir and will use it for other keepsakes. It can also be a reference if we happen to see this or something similar during our travels. I assume you can get these are duty free shops in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Doha or Istanbul - some of the usual airport stops en route to Europe, for example.

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Cravings for Mango and Sticky Rice

Last week, as we purchased some Cha Yen or Thai Milk Tea at our favorite stall at a nearby mall, I saw their sign stating they had mango and sticky rice for sale. I didn't hesitate to confirm if this was available and ended up ordering one to take home.

The set included sticky rice (malagkit), slices mangoes and a pack of reduced coconut milk (latik).

Mango and sticky rice ready for eating! 

Mango and sticky rice actually directly translates to suman at mangga in Filipino. This is a common food across Southeast Asia. I have enjoyed this while residing in Singapore, and while traveling in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. I assume there's a version in Vietnam, too. I just have yet to try it. I crave for this from time to time and usually get some from Thai restaurants.

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Puto manapla from Iloilo

I arrived at the office one morning to find our staff excited by the rice cakes given to them by one of our faculty members. One of our lecturers regularly commute between Iloilo and Quezon City and brought with him puto as pasalubong to the staff. These were not the regular puto manapla that you can now also buy at markets here but flavored variants - cheese and ube.

Ube and cheese flavored puto manapla

I was fortunate to have a share of the puto as the staff offered some to me. I consider this as comfort food among the many that bring back happy memories.  

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Bren Raphael's Ube halaya from Antipolo

Last week, we had dinner at the nearby mall and went around a bazaar selling local products. This was a regular thing at the mall where Antipolo and Rizal made products were sold. Most were food products and handicrafts but there were also clothing and cosmetic products. Among the new products we saw there was ube halaya made by a company in Antipolo City.

Ube halaya translates to Purple Yam Pudding. They have two variants - the smooth variant and this one with tidbits.

The ingredients and other details on the product are at the back of the package. They also make ube jam but we didn't purchase some to try.

The ube halaya comes out from the package sealed in a vacuum pack. It is on a plastic container with a lid. We thought this was really good packaging that would preserve the product especially for those wanting to buy these as pasalubong from Antipolo.

 

Price list for their ube halaya and ube jam

Their ube halaya is really good. It is better than many of the ube halaya we've bought before. It is on the pricier side of these products though. A tub of typical ube halaya costs a third of this. And we used to buy high quality ube halaya in the church bazaar at the Taktak church where we used to hear Mass on Sundays (we now hear Mass at our village chapel).

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Fresh Piaya from Breakfast at Antonio's, Opus Mall

We were at Opus Mall last weekend. It was our first time to go there despite often passing through the area. We decided to have lunch there and as we ate, I noticed the people at the nearby table splitting a pack of piaya among them for dessert. I suddenly remembered getting these wonderful piaya from Balay Dako in Tagaytay. They also make them at Opus.

Freshly made piaya being placed on the basket at the cashier's counter - they are still hot so they don't tie up the package at this time. The price per 6-piece pack is shown in the photo.

The newly made piaya are place on a tray before they are packed into plastic bags.

The piaya are really good especially when they're still freshly made and hot. You can actually heat them before you eat them later and they will still taste fresh. Just make sure you heat them on a pan or oven toaster, not the microwave, which will make them soft rather than crisp. 

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Super hot tinapa from Bicol

I got a few bottles of gourmet tinapa (smoked fish) during my recent travel to Legazpi City. These were available at the hotel where we stayed at. I got a couple of bottles of the regular and spicy variants. And enjoyed the regular variant the morning after my return from Legazpi. I only got to try the spicy variant last Palm Sunday and it is indeed spicy!

The gourmet tuyo is a product of a town located to the west of Legazpi City. Pio Duran is a coastal municipality of Albay beside the more prominent town of Donsol in Sorsogon Province. They face relatively pristine waters that are famous for whale sharks.

 

The spicy variant was indeed spicy! Here are the smoked fish all covered in chili and corn oil. Bicolanos, of course, are known to love spicy food with the signature dish Bicol Express being a favorite for meals.

While I enjoy spicy food including sardines, Indian, Sri Lankan or Thai food, I thought this spicy gourmet tinapa was on the edge of my tolerable limit to spicyness. It is good (don't get me wrong) but it requires a lot of rice and drinks to go with it. Eggs were not enough to temper the spiciness.

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Gourmet tinapa from Bicol

The hotel where we stayed at was selling bottles of gourmet tinapa. You can get something like these at the supermarket just like the bottled sardines. But there is always something about local bottled products like these that I like to take home as souvenirs. I did so for Alavar Spanish Sardines from Zamboanga and Victorias sardines from Negros Occidental. And so I instantly had interest in the gourmet tinapa at the hotel.

Tinapa is actually a generic word for smoked food (from tapa). In this case, it is the fish, which is likely to be herring or sardine.

There are two variants - the regular one and the extra spicy

This was a product of another Albay town to the west of Legazpi City and beside Donsol, Sorsogon. Donsol, of course, is famous for whale shark watching.

I got four bottles of the gourmet tinapa - two of each of the regular and spicy variants. We've opened a bottle of the regular one after some craving on my part. The tinapa in corn oil was really good. You can enjoy it for any meal with rice (breakfast, lunch or dinner). I thought it can also go well with pasta. I would surely get a few bottles the next time I see these.

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Guinobatan Longganisa

A close friend had told me about the longganisa (local sausage) in Bicol, particularly the one from Guinobatan, Albay. The real deal was supposed to be 100% fatty and used intestines. The regular variant you can get at restaurants or eateries are usually a mix of fat and laman (meat). And then there's a special variant that's mostly meat and lean (not so fatty). As like other longganisa, these are fried and for the Guinobatan longganisa, to a crisp.

Guinobatan longganisa for brunch (longsilog)

We had our brunch at Dad's in Camalig, Albay. This was after a quick tour of Cagsawa in Daraga town where we had hoped to see Mayon Volcano in her full glory. This meal had to be one highlight, food-wise, of my recent travel to Legazpi. I thought that Guinobatan Longganisa quickly came up my rankings for longganisa. My only regret is that I couldn't bring some home as I didn't find ones that were packed, frozen and ready to take home.

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Mango and sticky rice from Thailand

My brother traveled to Thailand and arrived before New Year's eve. I asked him to get me some mango sticky rice at the airport. I knew this delicacy was available at Suvarnabhumi Airport and if properly handled will survive the trip back to Manila. Instead of buying just one though, my brother got three packs.

Three packs of mango & sticky rice from Bangkok

This is the regular variety with white sticky rice.

This one's got pandan flavored rice.

And this one's got taro-flavored rice.

I ate the pandan stick rice pack first and enjoyed this as my New Year's Eve dinner.

The pack comes with pinipig (or rice crisps) and sweetened coconut milk.

As I could not finish all 3 and I estimated they will probably spoil soon, I shared the other packs with our staff as it seemed I was the only one in our family who enjoyed the mango and sticky rice. I usually order this as dessert whenever I'm in other Southeast Asian cities. We have our version here and usually with 'suman' but its 'biko' that should be the equivalent of the sticky rice as shown in the photos above.

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Stopover tupig in Pangasinan

Tupig is a rice cake delicacy you'd find in many places. Made from glutinous rice, coconut milk and (prefereably) muscovado sugar, its origins are supposed to be the Ilocano provinces as well as Tarlac. On our stopover at Sison, Pangasinan the stop had a tupig station. I wanted to buy some but unfortunately, it was still a couple of hours on our way to Baguio and dinner was also waiting for us at the hotel. I didn't like my tupig to be cold or eaten the next day without being heated.

This tupig is branded to be identified with the province.

Tupig fresh from the grill

I will return to Baguio very soon and perhaps will be able to get some tupig on the way back home.

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Local delicacies - dugos (wild honey)

Our first meal back in Iloilo was at the Tatoy's at Villa, in the Arevalo District of the city. Before I post about that and its environs, I wanted to write about a local delicacy that's actually quite common elsewhere in the country - wild honey. Dugos as they call it in Ilonggo is sold by ambulant vendors though you may also find them in bottles in some shops. The ones by the vendors might actually be better and collected by the vendors or their kin themselves.

Vendor selling dugos or wild unpasteurized honey for 50 pesos per container. He approached our group as we waited for our order of lunch from Tatoy's.

What the honey looks like - dark and viscous.

The taste brought me back to childhood days when we dipped pandesal, suman sa ibos or puto manapla during breakfasts at Tatay's home in Cabatuan. Those are happy memories I will cherish. The container for the dugos while usually (maybe traditionally) using bamboo, would have banana leaf as a lid rather than the Manila paper used here as shown in the photos. There was actually another vendor who passed by with his dugos covered by banana leaves rather than paper. The paper tends to absorb the honey and so now I have to get a container if I am to bring home some for later consumption.

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Chicharon delight from Carcar, Cebu

Perhaps among the preferred or popular pasalubong (souvenir) from Cebu is chicharon. The town of Carcar has many stores lined up along the National Road selling chicharon. It helps of course that Carcar is also well known for its lechon. Our driver/guide tells us we can actually visit a chicharon "factory". The mention of "factory" brough back memories of field trips when I was a child when we visited several actual factories that produced stuff like ice cream and soft drinks. Later when I was in college, the field trips were of construction sites, treatment plants and hydro power plants. Back to chicharon, which is basically deep fried and popped pork skin, here are a few photos taken in Carcar when we bought pasalubong.

Chicaron stores along the national road in Carcar, Cebu

Among the bestsellers are regular chicharon (right) and spicy chicharon (left). There are also variants of the regular chicharon depending on whether you like some meat to go with the pork skin.

The spicy chicharon looks like cheetos. It is more sinful, or perhaps unhealthy.

We ended up buying a few bags of chicharon each to bring home and to our office as pasalubong. The pasalubong were received well and didn't take long for people to enjoy and consume.

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Balut

A couple of Saturdays ago, as we were visiting my parents' home in Cainta, a balut vendor came by. My daughter liked to eat balut so I ended up buying a couple for her. Balut is fertilized egg embryo steamed or boiled. It is usually sold with the unfertilized variety that is referred to as penoy. Many people are squeamish about eating balut once the developing chick emerges when you remove the shell. I myself only drink the 'soup' and never ate the chick. My daughter isn't so squeamish so my folks were quite amused to see their apo consume 2 baluts that evening.

Balut is usually sold together with penoy. Many balut vendors also sell chicharon or fried pork skin. The latter goes well with vinegar.

 

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Mango and sticky rice

On our first meal in Bangkok, I made sure to order my favorite whenever I am in Southeast Asia - mango and sticky rice. While I've enjoyed this combination in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, perhaps my favorite outside of the Philippines would be Thailand's version.

Baan Phad Thais's mango and sticky rice

 

The mangoes in Thailand are a different variety but at the hotel where we stayed, I noticed they had at least two kinds of mango. One is the Thai variety and the other was distinctively a Philippine variety. More about mango and sticky rice in future posts.

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Weekend Biko (Sticky rice)

Last weekend our staff cooked some biko or suman as people generally refer to this kakanin or sticky rice delicacy. It goes well as merienda though heavy enough for a light lunch or dinner (it is rice, after all). It goes perfectly with fruits, with mangoes probably being the top choice (i.e., mango and sticky rice).

Freshly made biko transferred to a recycled food container

Enough was made for us to send to my parents in Cainta. Tatay and Mama loves the biko our staff makes at home. Lasang probinsya daw (tastes like the ones made in our provincial hometowns).

Close-up of the biko showing the coconut bit toppings and the calamnsi leaves adding to the vanilla to enhance the taste and aroma of the biko.

 

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Best otap in Cebu?

A close friend gave us some otap as pasalubong after the New Year. They spent the break in Cebu and one of the favorite souvenirs from there is their otap. The otap is like a cookie but with a somewhat crispy and flaky (both at the same time) texture to it. There is usually sugar on top of the otap. It is also described as a puff pastry as stated in many otap packaging. It is perfect as a snack and goes well with a beverage especially coffee or chocolate.

My friend told me that Hillside Bakeshop's special otap is the best in Cebu.

The otap is made in the town of Carmen, which is located north of Cebu City. The product bears the logo the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), which assisted in the production and packaging of the otap.

Nutrition and allergen information on this delicacy

The otap is packaged in two's

The usual otap we buy would be either Shamrock or Titay's. Shamrock is the 'go to' pasalubong and can easily be purchased at many stores including their own and the local groceries or supermarket. Of course, these are also sold at the airport terminal. Titay's is also available in most stores and supermarkets but has better packaging than Shamrock. But Titay's is better known for its other products. It just so happens they have otap, too. It is Shamrock that claims to be home of Cebu's finest otap. I even recall that at one time their packaging stated "the house that otap built" or something like that. My friend says Hillside's is the best otap now. Tasting it, I thought it is better than Shamrock and Titay's. It tasted creamier than Shamrock's or Titay's. I would say that based on the pack I was given that this was better otap. However, I wouldn't discount other otap in Cebu being better in taste (or quality), or that there are other otap made elsewhere that would taste better. I guess the jury is still out there for the best otap.

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Koska Turkish Delight

The wife bought a box of jellied cubes of pistachios at a Christmas bazaar at a mall near her workplace, which is the closest description I can make of Turkish Delight.

Koska Turkish Delight - the photo on the box pretty much describes what you'd find inside. It also clearly states that this is Kosher certified and vegan.

The packaging for this Turkish Delight from another angle

Details on this delicacy at the bottom of the box

Ingredients and allergy advice

Nutrition information

Inside the box is a plastic container holding the cubes

Opening the container reveals the cubes

You can see the pistachio nut embedded in the cube

It is certainly a delight and I recall tasting and enjoying something like this from Iran. My good friend from my time as a student in Japan shared a delicacy from their country. The taste is similar but the texture was different as Turkish Delight is gelatinous while the one from Iran was more like hard candy or nougat.

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