Naga Food Institutions

Bigg's Diner
Panganiban Drive, Naga City
With 14 locations across Bicol

[Chorizo Breakfast]

Bigg's Diner was just a 2-minute walk from where we stayed in Naga City, so it became our breakfast joint, especially since our daily schedules began at 630AM, and Bigg's is open 24 hours.

We loved the chorizo plate with scrambled eggs and fried rice. Also the pasta platters, which include a piece of Bigg's specialty fried chicken, plus a pizza slice. For the pasta you can choose between carbonara or bolognese sauces on spaghetti.

[Pasta Combo Platter]

Bigg's evolved from being named Mang Donald's, then Nald's, obviously in reference, or probably in deference, to the multinational fastfood giant. When it started operations back in the early 80's, there were no fastfood restaurants around Bicol. Even as late as my visit with the butandings in Sorsogon I spotted no Jollibee or Mcdo anywhere in Bicolandia. So Bigg's captured that niche - our natural craving for American fast food.

According to an article featured in Vanity Magazine in its December 2005 issue and printed on paper that serves as your placemat when you eat at Bigg's, the name came as a natural choice because Bigg's burgers are 30% bigger than what other fastfood chains offer.

I ordered the Bigg's burger one breakfast, and took out the cheeseburger and cheesy mushroom variants as pasalubong. They were all satisfyingly gourmet this side of the country, complete with large onion rings, tomato slices, lettuce. The burger patties were thick yet juicy, and, amazingly, sported herb flavors - mainly rosemary. My son loved the toasted sesame seeds that topped each bun.

It's not just a burger joint, though, because Bigg's is truly a diner. All things on the menu - rice toppings, fresh vegetable salads, silogs, pasta, pizza - are available any time of the day, and all through the night. And with the hodgepodge menu, it was surprising that most of the dishes we tried were good. Particularly the chicken teriyaki - almost better than the one cooked in any respectable Japanese restaurant.

Bob Marlin
Magsaysay Avenue
Naga City
Tel. No. (054) 4731339

[Bob Marlin Platter]

We had two meals at Bob Marlin's because the owner used to work for the Naga branch of our agency. The name was culled from the reggae artist Bob Marley, who's a favorite of the owner's son - evident in the restaurant design and piped-in music - and the pelagic fish blue marlin.

Bob Marlin is more of a drinking joint - "your reggae getaway." Great food. Soothing sounds. Good times. The outside patio ambience is nice, especially at night. I never saw a menu - our hosts ordered in advance both times and we came to the restaurant with the table already laid - so I don't know if they actually served blue marlin. We never had one.

What we had were so delicious, though, and represented the bounty of the area. The Bob Marlin platter had squid lightly grilled that it was so soft to the bite, garlicky baked mussels, and grilled pork belly that was so well complemented by the dipping sauce. These also went so well with the accompanying tomato and salted egg slices.

And that mound of rice in the center? It was probably the best fried rice I've ever tasted. It had nothing but dried krill mixed in it - those minute shrimps used in making bagoong alamang - but it was so good. The flavor is rich but not overpowering, gently adding a new dimension of taste when paired with any of the grilled items.

[Ginataang Adobo]

Bob Marlin's ginataang adobo (vinegar stew in coconut cream) uses native chicken (free-range or organic), and is garnished with papaya slices and young sili leaves. More of a ginataang tinola for me. It was superb, with just the right levels of saltiness, sourness and heat, effectively rounding up the gata flavor.

We also had sinigang na lapu-lapu (small grouper in sour broth) served in a palayok (clay pot). In Pangasinan we never cooked lapu-lapu in a sinigang because we deemed the flesh too bland - too expensive, too - for the soup. But apparently lapu-lapu sinigang is a common dish in Bicol - I also had it in the home of a very good friend in Daet. With the abundance of the fish in the region, coming from the Pacific, lapu-lapu can be had fresh and cheap and just perfect for sinigang. At Bob Marlin's the level of sourness of the soup greatly enhanced the fish.

Cafe Candice
General Luna Street
Naga City
Tel. No. (054) 4738733

[Concorde Cake]

Cafe Candice has been known for the longest time in the city for toasted siopao, probably for sentimental reasons more than for the taste. The bread is more putok than your usual white, soft siopao, with ground pork filling cooked with diced singkamas (jicamas) and spring onion leaves.

But we had a slice of this great cake - pure sugar high! It sustained us during our shopping frenzy in the daing (dried fish and seafood) section at the second floor of the public market. It's a chewy milk chocolate mousse surrounded by broas (lady fingers). Excellent with coffee.

What else did we eat in Naga?
Pinangat Pizza!

Three years after
Pinangat at Penafrancia
Bob Marlin, Take 2
Bade
Binatog
Bring Home Bicol

Food Tripping in Naga: Pinangat Pizza

[Laing Pizza]

On a recent business trip to Naga with a couple of officemates, our local hosts instructed our driver to take us to the famed Camarines Sur Water Sports Complex, or CWC for short. I'm not sure whether they expected us to try out wakeboarding, regaling us with (made-up) stories of their own sommersaults, but when we got there and saw wakeboarders falling with such a splash on the water, we chickened out.

We had time to kill - and left-over money to spend from our allowances - before our flight back to Manila the next day, so we stayed, and did the next best thing - eat, of course!

We followed our hosts' last instruction as we parted, to order the pinangat pizza, which appeared something like Bicol pizza on the menu - pizza topped with the distinctive dish of the region, laing, or dried taro leaves cooked in coconut cream.

We heard it was the favorite of foreigners who frequent the sports camp. My companions said we were not foreigners, haha.

It was not that bad actually. It just needed more spices to heat it up. The generous melted salty cheese topping drowned the laing taste a bit. It tasted somewhat like Amici's current spinach canneloni, which, to me at least, deteriorated from the delicious version I first tasted years ago.

The 4-piece chicken quesadilla was superb, though, served with a handful of fries. When you go there avoid the shrimp popcorn at all costs.

[Chicken Quesadilla]

We didn't have the chance to try the other items on the menu, but I'm planning to take my family back for a short vacation. To really get to wakeboard, and eat more. The rates are still cheap, because it has just opened. Hourly rates for wakeboarding are at Php165, inclusive of gear rental, at the end of which hour maybe you'd be more than bruised and exhausted from falling, haha. The food does not carry burdensome VAT and service charge. That pizza was only Php160, and other pizza flavors are all below Php200.

[Cabanas at Php800 consumable]

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CamSur Watersports Complex (CWC)
Provincial Capitol Complex
Pili, Camarines Sur
info@camsurwatersportscomplex.com
(054)4754784

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What else did we eat in Naga?
Chicken in Coconut Cream, Burgers and Cakes!


Three Years After
Pinangat at Penafrancia
Bob Marlin, Take 2
Bade
Binatog
Bring Home Bicol

Halaan Arroz Caldo

[Clam Congee]

Aren't we Filipinos all glad for the rains that has been pouring down these last few days? I still hope, and it will do us all good to continue praying, that the downpours don't stop, especially since they've been announcing on television that even the three typhoons expected to hit the country this month won't do much in raising our dams' waters from their present critical levels.

Besides giving relief to the already parched and cracked ricefields in five provinces in Northern and Central Luzon - the country's palay central - the rains also offer a break from the scorching heat of the country's unbelievably extended summer. Now all I would like to do is curl up in bed with a soft blanket, cuddling my two big babies, after a bowlfull of steaming rice porridge. If only offices were suspended.

Arroz caldo, the handed down Spanish term meaning hot rice, or rice porridge, or congee by the Chinese, is the ultimate comfort food for the rainy season. It is rice and viand and soup all in one, good any time of the day, heavy enough to last you through a nap til the next meal, yet light enough that it does not build up extra bulges while you laze away doing nothing.

I have fond memories eating arroz caldo during candlelit dinners in my childhood - because there were brown-outs come typhoon time - while the windows rattled and probably our neighbors's roofs flew away with the howling winds. It was memorable, not because of the destruction wrought by the innumerable bagyos, but because we were comforted nonetheless, with our family together, sharing a hot meal, beads of perspiration breaking out of our foreheads, with me and my siblings fighting over the drumstick in the arroz caldo.

The traditional arroz caldo is rice cooked with chicken, preferably native or free-range raised in your own backyard (or in your lola's backyard), for more flavor (and less hormones and chemicals, although when I was a child we were not concerned about those things). There may be fried crushed garlic, and patis (salted fish sauce), or slices of spring onion leaves, or maybe a squeeze of calamansi, or a dash of finely ground pepper, perhaps a boiled egg or even a century egg if you're feeling indulgent. All to add nuances to the porridge and round up the flavors, one at a time or all together in one swoop.

Here, with the various condiments on the table added by the diner to the arroz caldo while eating, as determined by his individual tastes and preferences, it is more similar to the Chinese congee, which is just the basic rice soup base. That is, cook rice with more water than needed - about double - so it turns out soupy.

Chinese congee, though, is just like the Filipino lugaw - soupy rice boiled with slices of ginger - given to the sick. Add to it meats, and it becomes a feast for the whole family - whether on convalescence or just imagining maladies - during stormy weather. Chicken turns the lugaw into arroz caldo, goto (tripe) transforms it into goto lugaw (a must after a night of imbibing alcohol), lamang-loob (offal) make it lugaw bituka. A plate of tokwa't baboy - sliced boiled pig ears and lightly fried cubed tokwa (tofu) drenched in spiced vinegar and soy sauce - on the side add heft and protein, as well as more texture and flavor.

Since I am in Cavite, where seashells are aplenty and always fresh, not to mention succulent and fat, I thought it would be nice to try clams in lugaw. I've tried North Park's congee with Pacific clams and it was a good break from the usual meat versions. Healthier, too, I suppose, because it has only half the fat of a meat version, but it contains high amounts of iron, managanese, niacin, phosphorus, potassium, vitamins B2 and B12, zinc, and, believe it or not, vitamin C at 49% RDA of a 2,000-calorie diet. (Nutritional details here)

With all the congee condiments and flavorings, plus a bonus rind of fatty pork chicharon, this lugaw was rich and flavorful, a bowlfull for breakfast so filling that I totally skipped lunch. It was just so nice to sleep through the day, anyway.

Halaan Lugaw

1kg fresh clams
1 small onion, thinly sliced
a thumb of ginger root, peeled and sliced
3 cups rice
water

1. Wash the clams and boil in a pan of water with onions and ginger until they open.


2. Scoop out all the shells with a slotted ladle and discard the unopened ones. Set aside.


3. Put the rice in a deep pan, wash and drain.


4. Pour the clam soup into the rice and add more water, ensuring that the quantity is double that of what is needed to cook ordinary rice. Bring to a boil on medium fire, stirring once in a while to keep the grains from sticking to the bottom. Add more water if necessary.


5. Remove clams from their shells. When the rice is almost done and the porridge has thickened (not too thick, though, as the porridge will thicken some more once it cools), add the clams. (You can also saute the clams in oil, garlic and onions before adding them to the rice porridge.)


6. Serve hot with any combination or all of the following on the side: boiled egg or century egg, tokwa't baboy, chicharon - whole, in bits or crushed. Condiments and garnishings - fried crushed garlic, fried thinly sliced ginger, sliced spring onion leaves, patis, pepper, calamansi.

• North Park Noodle House locations