It's September and the malls have started playing Christmas songs. I hate that it's so early, but I've gone and visited that mother of all shopping meccas, the venerable Divisoria. I went with another Divi-veteran, who introduced me to the food pleasures of 168 Mall.
We had miki-bihon pancit guisado at Chopsticks and Spoons at the 5th level food court, with a humongous special siopao, which had asado filling half of the interior of the soft dough. and bola-bola with salted egg filling the other half. The pancit was full of sahog, and was cooked to order so we got it fresh and piping hot.
The fruit selection is more interesting, with several pear varieties. No hami, but there were carts full of cherry-looking things that vendors said were cherry apples that were being sold for Php100/kilo.
It turns out these were a kind of Asian crab apples, and the moniker is correct. They look like cherries, but they have the flesh of apples. Tart apples, that is, like green ones. Very firm flesh, crunchy and juicy, with the same uneatable core.
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When I was in Edmonton for training, my relatives had this tree in their yard. It was full of fruit. Ako lang kumakain.It seems hindi nila kinakain yan doon, and the trees is for decorative purposes. Maliit lang kasi, mga 2.5 meters tall.
ReplyDeleteThe fruits that you see in Divisoria are probably from China, where environmental regulations are nonexistent or ignored. If they are too perfect-looking, the insects, birds and bats probably couldn't stand the insecticide residues. Wash very well. The same goes for their brocolli, and other fruits that are eaten with skin.
Yes, thank you for the advice, some friends also made the same warning. It was notable, though, that these fruits were all pockmarked and with black spots. As what we do with all apples I wanted to peel them, but wala matitira, so we just washed them throughly with drinking water.
ReplyDeleteI too, don't like that the stores here in the states already had Christmas stuff up at the start of September!
ReplyDeleteOh is that so Mrs. L? So now we in the Philippines can't claim to have the longest Christmas season then!
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