Alter Trade

Having started this series of posts on the food of Bacolod and Negros with the MassKara festival – borne out of the misery experienced by Negrenses with the slump of the sugar industry in the 1980s – I thought it fitting to end it with a piece that shows how sugar production is doing today in the island. In sweeter notes, this time.

For there is Alter Trade, believed to be the leading practitioner of fair trade in the country. Fair trade, in a gist, is a trading arrangement between two entities – usually a producer from a developing country and a distributor from a developed country – that tries to ensure the production of organic, quality products and creates a market for them, and the minimization of middlemen in the trading process, thus assuring that the producer gets fair prices for its products.


Alter Trade has partnered with Alter Trade Japan and created a market for organic mascobado sugar (or muscovado or Barbados sugar, unrefined brown sugar) and balangon (green bananas, called ebeb in Pangasinan) produced by Negros farmers. It also exports mascobado and mascobado-based beauty products to Europe.


A Bacolena friend noted that Alter Trade mascobado is the best unrefined brown sugar in the country today. However, only the unrefined granulated sugar is commonly available in supermarkets, with masco rocks and masco flakes sold in specialty stores, which I use like sugar cubes.


I was surprised to see, though, the beauty products. There’s facial wash, facial scrub, facial mask and others labeled in French, German, etc. which indicate where they are headed to. Who knew you could be sweet and beautiful, too? As well as fair, in the full sense of the word.

I'm sure that with Alter Trade, Negrenses are wearing true smiles beneath those smiling masks.

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Alter Trade
Block 6 A, Lily Street
Bata Subdivision
6100 Bacolod City, Negros Occidental,
Philippines
Tel. No. (63-34) 4410051
Email: atcsales@info.com.ph,atcsales@altertradegroup.com.ph
Website

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Calea

Negros Occidental, whose capital is Bacolod City, is an island of vast sugarcane fields. It is the country’s major cane sugar producer, exporting to other parts of the world.

Of course the industry had a major impact on the foodscape of the region. Traditional Negros products are guaranteed to induce sugar highs – piaya, butterscotch, napoleones, biscocho, baye-baye, pinasugbo.

In Bacolod, sweetness pervades non-traditional fare, as well.

After we were treated to dinner at Aboy's by my office colleagues in the Negros region, we were taken to Bob’s Café, across 21 Restaurant along Lacson Street, for coffee and some dessert. The display case contained cakes and pastries, but I can’t remember why nothing appealed to me. Which was strange - maybe they had all looked familiar and I was looking for something new, or maybe I was too full from all the tipay I had eaten.

A colleague wanted durian ice cream and ordered a pint, so I decided I’d just ask for a spoonful or two of it. Over the course of the evening someone mentioned that the ice cream cakes of Calea were much sought after by out-of-towners because, apparently, that kind of frozen dessert is rare anywhere else, or Calea’s version/s was/were much better.

I filed that information in the must-try section of my memory bank, and it was the first thing I mentioned when my long-time friend and Bacolod host asked the next day where I wanted to go.


We went to the branch at Rob, short for Robinson’s Mall, which was a small affair, but cosy and very accessible. I was told ice cream cakes, so my eyes glazed while passing over the other cakes, and cleared only upon reaching the chiller containing the semifreddos. Which was unfortunate.


I could only order so much, after eating my way around Bacolod the whole day. What’s worse, my friend wasn’t into sweets, even though he was born and grew up in Bacolod.

It was regrettable that I only ordered ice cream cakes, because I didn’t like the quality of the ice creams. Not really poor, but not really awesome either. Just mediocre. One cake was rendered way too sweet it hurt my tonsils by the chocolate syrup, which wasn’t very good, too.


But all wasn’t lost. Upon leaving I bestowed a cursory glance at the regular cakes on display, and decided there must be more to Calea than the semifreddos. I couldn’t take in any more sweet stuff, but since I was going home that day I thought maybe I could bring some slices to share with the husband for dessert that evening after dinner.

I got a slice each of the white chocolate cheesecake with raspberry syrup and the “imported chocolate cake” (after having three outlets already you’d think Calea would be much more imaginative in naming their cakes) to take home, but I was aghast to learn that the cake slices would be put on a paper plate and slid inside a small paper bag.

Obviously, take out materials aren’t given much thought at Calea, and the owners don’t much care how their cakes slices arrive at their ultimate destinations. Maybe because they’re only slices? I couldn’t buy a whole cake that could have been put in a box because I wasn’t sure I’d like it, so just a slice to sample and a whole one for the next trip.

Alas, I had to hand-carry two cake slices in a paper bag all the way to the Silay airport, besides a mountain of assorted pasalubong, for the two-hour wait for my flight, which extended to three hours due to turn-around delays. So when I had the cakes on the dinner table at home they were less than presentable.

But oh my God. After taking a forkful from both all the lament I felt vanished. They were worth the effort it took, the worry it entailed, the irritation at the injustice of it. I just regret that they became unphotogenic so that all the photos I have here in this post are of the unimpressive semifreddos.


I had reservations about the cheesecake because I was told by a Calea staff that it wasn’t baked, so I was expecting it would melt during the flight. But it was baked alright, and held up nicely, even though it was deformed by my handling. The deformation didn’t in any way alter the taste, which was awesome.

As in awesome. There was perfect balance - salty, sour and sweet – between the cheese and the white chocolate, and the cake was dense yet crumbly. It had a very good, more than your ordinary graham, crust at just the right thickness, and the raspberry syrup was the crowning glory. Tart more than sweet, it complemented the sourness of the cheesecake, pairing nicely with the saltiness, and freshening up the sweetness.

The chocolate cake - the imported one - was purely first rate. It was soft, the chocolate mighty potent, the sweetness level restrained to a comfortable level. Now if only the same quality chocolate was used in the semifreddos. But I realize you can’t have all you want. So it's a whole cake - in a box - that I'm bringing home next time. And I'll ignore the ice cream cakes.

The Cake of the Month Series

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Bacolod's Burgos Market

Here's a cursory look inside the Burgos Market in Bacolod City. I was there on a Friday morning, and I was surprised that it looked sleepy, what with just a few people shopping, the stalls not fully occupied. But the selection was nonethless exciting, and I found some very interesting things.

The shells I have seen somewhere else, though not in Pangasinan nor Cavite. Somewhere in my other trips, I believe those long narrow ones are called bamboo shells which I have eaten at Harbor View by the Quirino Grandstand. But it was these shells that intigued me - my first time to encounter them.


They looked like beetles, green cockroaches even, and all had their "tongues" sticking out.

The round headless body of the pork of the sea - my beloved blue marlin.

Cross-section of a blue marlin

Some lapu-lapu, and freshwater (or maybe brackish) bulgan (apahap, or local bass)

Small bisugo and asuhos

Alumahan, sap-sap, and great espadas

A closer look at the espada. Real big ones, like the ones we eat in Pangasinan, which I sometimes find in Cavite, though not as big, and not as common.
.

Galangal, used to flavor the local seasoned vinegar sinamak, and the common, hairless ginger.

Batwan, of course

Some leaves I am not familiar with, eaten as vegetables

Kadyos, center, sold as commonly as green peas and yellow balatong (monggo or mung beans)


I have only seen, and eaten, this kind of mung bean sprouts, in Pangasinan, which we call inpabasik, and I was so happy to find it in Bacolod. These are further on in their germination than togue, hence the shorter tail, developed bodies, which are "naked" and completely opaque.

18th St. Pala-Pala

In the scruffy fashion of restaurant dining that is SuTuKil of Cebu, or Breakthrough in Iloilo, or Luz Kinilaw of Davao, the nameless stalls by the beach all over the islands of the country, and of course the centralized, macro version that is Dampa/Seaside in Metro Manila, Bacolod holds its own with an even better version.

18th St. Pala-Pala promises excitement in the intimate encounter with your seafood before it is cooked, providing the assurance that it is fresh, and giving you the choice of ordering what looks best.

These are not ordinary, diners-are-waited-on restaurants for fussy, royalty eaters. It involves work – marketing for your food, though not legwork, as the market is either right at the entrance to the restaurant, like in SuTuKil, or inside right before the kitchens, which is how Pala-Pala is designed. More legwork is actually needed for the Dampa/Seaside complexes in Metro Manila due to the centralized wet market for all restaurants, but that is made up for by the comfort of air-cooled dining areas, whereas in the provinces most are open-air affairs.

At Pala-Pala (which means the wayside by which seafood is sold) in Bacolod, there is more choices in the variety of seafood at the “market” counter than any other provincial restaurant I have so far been to. In fact within the first hour that we were there many other excellent samples kept arriving.

Just arrived blue marlin

But the manner of ordering is the same – view the fresh catch, ponder what you want to have, and how much of one species, ponder some more how you want it cooked, then try to catch the attention of the people at the counter, ask for the price, think over if it’s reasonable and order, or if it’s not reasonable go over the choices again, and repeat the procedure. All these with the accompanying din and bustle as if you were truly in a live wet market with a thousand shoppers haggling for the freshest catch.

And in the middle of it all there may be some argument as to the way the seafood is cooked, because the order-takers may have a strong opinion about some mode of cooking for a particular kind of seafood, but this would be very helpful for those who don’t shop and cook themselves and would be quite happy with whatever arrives at their tables.

At Pala-Pala, like the other provincial restaurants, there are several cooked dishes on display, though if you order these they are served at the same time as those that still require cooking. So if you’re famished don’t think of having them as appetizers, though those that we ordered from the “market” didn’t really take that long to appear on our table.

What I just noticed was the bit of seeming “red tape” in the number of people you’d have to deal with in ordering food. In the others you just approach the counter, point, and order, one person attending you. At Pala-Pala, I dealt with a very excited guy for my seafood, was turned over to a more sober female order-taker for the accompanying rice, any barbecued meats and my choice of the cooked dishes, and then was told to order our drinks from another male server who would approach our table.

After ordering at the counter the female just laid down the paper where my orders were written down in front of her, and proceeded to entertain the customer beside me. When I asked for a number or something, so our server would know where to take our orders, she said the male server would take care of everything and asked me to find a table. I followed her instruction with some trepidation, thinking my orders would be mixed up with others,’ and particularly because I saw nobody following me, and they had a full house then.

And then my companions didn’t like the table I chose, and we went to another part of the restaurant. But a male server did get there and repeated my orders for confirmation, and we got all our food on the table in no time. So even if it got me confused, they must be employing that procedure or order-taking and serving successfully and are comfortable with it.

Anyway, on to the food. Nothing fancy like sizzling or anything as I had kids with me, but everything was superb. The ginisang punao (Php55), sautéed local clams in soup, was among the cooked dishes on display, and it could have been served hotter than how we got it, but it was so delicious that I chose to overlook the shortcoming.

Corpulent scallops baked in butter and sprinkled with minced fried garlic. No matter where I go in the Visayas I always get scallops this way (see Stephanie’s, and Aboy's), the most heavenly way to eat the sweet, plump meat, and I can’t understand why I can’t find any restaurant at Dampa along Macapagal which could cook scallops this way – they always ruin the shells adding this or that. So I always end up buying them fresh and baking them at home myself. Just divine. (Php160 at 5-6 pieces)

The blue marlin was going for Php569 a kilo, which was quite a hefty price, but as I previously said, blue marlin is a fish I wouldn’t miss for anything in Bacolod, so I got this piece at all of 400 grams and had it simply grilled. Rapturous.

At any dining outlet in Bacolod my kids were adamant in ordering inasal, so even though Pala-Pala is seafood, I included a piece of inasal pecho, and it became a taste test of some sort. Manokan Country tops them all off, hands down, but all the inasal we had in Bacolod City (21, Ribeye Bar, Pala-Pala) were still superior to any other inasal anywhere else - succulently grilled, subtly flavored.

We had mango shake, and a sample of the soft-serve yogurt with toppings, but both weren’t so good. But it didn’t matter, because Pala-Pala is all about seafood. It was just for the best – it would make for a good excuse to have drinks, and dessert, somewhere else, thus giving the opportunity to explore more the foodscape of Bacolod.

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Bacolod 18th St. Pala-Pala Seafood Grill & Restaurant
Corner 18th Aguinaldo Street, Bacolod City
Tel. No. (63-34) 4339153

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Aboy's

Aboy’s seems to be the Bacolod equivalent of Breakthrough in Iloilo, Silverio’s in Dagupan, Stephanie’s in Tacloban, Bob Marlin’s in Naga – it is where you take guests from out of town to experience the best of the local cuisine.

Aboy’s is native to the hilt, a large open pavilion structured with bamboo, or bamboo look-alike, nipa, capiz, though there is an equally huge air-conditioned area that one can seek shelter in from the outdoors if it proves too sultry.

But the food’s not really native, if you ask me. In my opinion, institutions like the cansi houses at the shopping district and Manokan Country are excellent representatives of Hiligaynon cuisine, specializing in specific dishes done best because they’ve been serving them for countless years.

At Aboy’s, just like in the above-mentioned restaurants in other islands across the country, you eat seafood - seafood that abounds in the area. So at Aboy's there's managat, the sweet, succulent tilapia look-a-alike that I've only encountered in Panay and Negros. We had it in a batwan-soured broth.


Juicy scallops done the way I like them - buttered, baked and sprinkled with lots of crispy fried minced garlic.


Then there's blue marlin, which is everywhere - you can order it in any restaurant you go to in Bacolod. At the Burgos public wet market I saw beheaded, rotund carcasses of blue marlin waiting to be sliced, the vendors labeling it pork from the sea. Everywhere, like at Aboy's, it's served simply, grilled and buttered. Perfectly succulent.


We had adobong atay na manok, and I was expecting it was adobo Bacolod-style, which is without soy sauce, but this one was just like any other liver adobo.


Stuffed squid, grilled rare. Fresh and and soft, not a morsel chewy.


This was supposed to be the special drink at the restaurant, and all tables around us ordered it. It was like sago't gulaman, only that it was tasteless. But it was okay, since I was in the land of sugar, and I did not for a minute lack anything sweet.

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Aboy’s Restaurant Bacolod
Liroville Subdivision, Bacolod City
Cel. No. (63-917) 3000400
Tel. No. (63-34) 4352340
Email: aboyevaristo@yahoo.com

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Manokan Country

I have eaten chicken inasal by many and varied establishments, from exports Chicken Bacolod, Mang Inasal, the former mall foodcourt king Ilonggo Grill, to the one and only Tatoy’s by the beach in Iloilo. But I was in Bacolod, and I did not neglect to go basic, as far as inasal is concerned. For I went to Manokan Country.


Inasal may have started here, and inasal is done best here. Manokan Country is a sort of strip mall, with row upon row of eateries selling nothing but. Chicken butt, chicken feet, chicken liver, chicken gizzard, chicken intestines, name it, it's done inasal style.


Of course it's not purely a place to drive the squeamish away. Cowards can have the pa-a (drumstick) or the pecho (breast with a wing). My drumstick was a bit bony, but it was succulent, and I haven't had inasal so good in a looong, loong time.

We were there before lunchtime on a weekday, and we were practically the only people around. Apparently the place crawls with families and drinkers at night. We didn't have any particular stall in mind, but ordered at first sight of the impaled chicken parts. It was grilled for some minutes, and we had it with a serving of fresh oysters.

Inasal is the quintessential Ilonggo chicken barbecue, marinated in natural vinegar, ginger, calamansi, salt, sugar, and basted with oil suffused with the sunshine tint of achuete (annatto seeds). The flavor is not forceful, but only slightly so, like a tease that exhorts your tongue to catch.


For a more upfront taste, bite-sizes of the succulent, hot off the grill-smoking chicken is manually torn off and dipped into a mixture of sinamak, calamansi, and toyo (soy sauce), to be followed by mounds of steaming hot rice drizzled with the annatto oil and fried minced garlic.


The oil is supposed to be the drippings from the grilling chicken, but commercially speaking I don't think it's possible to save all those hot fat. People tell me it's just vegetable oil of some sort. So I just tried it a bit for posterity, but didn't really scoop it on my plate.


But the sinamak is another matter. You pour it on the chicken, and on your rice, and on practically anything else on your plate.

This local vinegar is flavored with galangal and garlic, the spice amped by quite a few red and green finger chiles that provide a feast for the eyes as well as the tongue. It's made from coconuts, so it's calmly sour, not a acidic, with hints of sweetness. That you can slurp. All by itself. Mmmmm.

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Manokan Country
Rizal Street, Bacolod City

beside SM City Bacolod/city plaza

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Previous Posts on the Food of Bacolod
Napoleones
Reconnecting with Bacolod Sweets
Bacolod Products, Old & New
More Bacolod Products, Old & New
Lamud
Batwan

Baye-Baye in Bacolod

Baye-baye is this rice delicacy that's as common as sugar in Bacolod, yet is held in so high esteem that it is served on special occasions, and is so much a part of traditional celebrations.

Particularly on All Saints' Day in the island of Negros, tradition dictates that baye-baye is made, the preparation and eating shared by kith and kin converging in the family household, the departed loved ones even offered some. Probably just like our deremen in Pangasinan, baye-baye is particularly good at this time of the year because rice is newly harvested.

Bacolod locals have shared much about making baye-baye in the comments portion of these posts, and also in my post about Iloilo baye-baye.

To recap, glutinous rice (malagkit in Filipino, pilit in Hiligaynon or Ilonggo, the local language in Panay and Negros Occidental) is toasted, ground, mixed with sugar then pounded in a mortar til soft and pliant. Strips of young coconut can be added if a lot of visitors are expected so the batch of baye-baye is eaten within the day.

Ilonggos are one in saying that making baye-baye is backbreaking work, reason enough to make it only on highly regarded events, like Undas and Holy Week, when whole families make the trek to their provincial origins.


The baye-baye in Bacolod is distinct from the baye-baye in Iloilo/Panay in that it comes in many shapes, as well as in color and texture. And in Panay a short strip of highway along the road to the international airport in Pavia is where baye-baye can be found. In Bacolod, it can be anywhere, though the delicacy runs out by noontime in both sides of the Bacolod Channel.


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Reconnecting with Bacolod Sweets
Bacolod Products, Old & New
More Bacolod Products, Old & New
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Batwan

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