bucaio: food finds

Showing posts with label food finds. Show all posts

Thursday, December 25, 2014

Ebai's Apple Walnut Cake

I try to shun away from walnut cakes, for all those I've tried were parchingly dry. But when we were in Baguio for a much needed pre-Christmas vacation, the head of our office branch in the city handed me a small box of what she labeled as Ebai Cafe's best.

I accepted gratefully, but reserved judgement on its reputation. Ebai's owner had been a client of the agency I work for, and we had always supported her business, going to lengths to promote her products. But she had not been known foremost for her culinary prowess

When in Baguio I always troop to Vizco's, for its distinctively local strawberry cake. But of course I will be very remiss in being a foodie if I don't give other cakes in the summer capital a chance, won't I, especially if it had been given for free. So we forced ourselves to avoid Session Road, and came straight to our lodgings after dinner to open the box and try a slice.

I believe you cannot cure a walnut cake, for it is naturally dry. But it can be moistened with fruit, so in this case, the apples - in great, soft chunks lounging in the crumb - provided the much-needed moisture and fluff. The cake is moistened further by the excellent cream cheese frosting, generously coating the entire cake, that was redolent of cinnamon.

And so I accept. Ebai's apple walnut cake is the cake to eat in Baguio City during Christmas. The spice, the apple-pie-a-la-mode affinity, are a festive match to the cold holiday air perfumed by pine needles, mint and pungent thyme. Great with steaming tea or coffee, but good enough, on its own. A holiday discovery that will haunt the rest of the year, and the next.

Happy holidays, everyone!

Eba's Cafe and Pastry151 Upper Session Road
Baguio City
Tel. No. (63-74) 4469722
Mobile No. (63-939) 9035593

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Japan: Rokurinsha

My arrival in Tokyo was a protracted one, despite being on an on-time, 3-hour direct morning flight. I dutifully went to the airport a full four hours before the ETD, which meant I had to leave home around 2AM. As usual I had not slept doing last-minute checks, and I had failed to expect that the budget airline I had chosen to take me to Japan had seats that did not recline (I am never taking a flight with this airline again).

I had known that all food on board was for sale, so I had brought along lunch (no breakfast for me, I had flown from NAIA 1, and all dining outlets there look suspect). But it had been horrible to hear the announcement a few minutes after we had taken off that consumption of food brought in from outside was not allowed on the flight. Good thing I had a window seat, so I managed to eat on the sly the chicken pie I had bought the day before from Banapple.

Anyway, I was at the Narita airport after lunch, and after managing my way around the terminal and withdrawing enough local currency from an ATM, I boarded a bus direct to the heart of Tokyo. The bus ride took approximately an hour, then I spent another 30 minutes or so walking to my hotel, which wasn’t all that far, but I took my time ogling at all the window displays and then some.

And so by the time I had deposited my things, freshened up, and changed clothes, it was close to four o’clock in the afternoon, which meant I had about thirty minutes of daylight left. I had planned on going to Shibuya on my first day in Tokyo, to have a photo taken with Hachiko to fulfill the promise I had made to the kids. So I hurried to the Tokyo train station, which was a ten minute walk away.

at past four on a Monday afternoon

While I tried to locate the right ticket booth, I chanced upon this long line of people clad in what looked to me to be office attire, each one toting a briefcase of some sort. I wondered what were office workers doing out queuing to eat at that time of day? Did office days end early in Japan? But the most important thing I hadn’t known at the time was that I had come upon ramen alley at the basement of Tokyo station by mistake.

My trip to Japan was for eight days, but this time I did not search every nook and cranny of the internet looking for recommendations on where to eat. This was because Japan was known all over to be an expensive destination, and if I find recommendations to places that turn out to have unreasonable prices, I’ll just be disappointed for the length of my trip. So I decided that I’ll eat wherever I find myself during mealtimes.

It wasn’t mealtime at past four, but seeing that long line made my stomach growl, out loud, and I instantly remembered, and felt, that I haven’t had a decent meal since the previous day. So I decided Hachiko wasn’t going anywhere and could wait for my visit on another day, and promptly fell in line, which at the moment hadn’t turned the corner yet. I hadn’t known it then, but I just fell in line for the second most famous tsukemen in all of Japan, and that people queue for it for hours in snaking lines.

I didn’t even know what the shop was called, as the sign did not have an English subtitle, or what it sold. But the line moved briskly enough, and I was able to peer in through the windows, seeing that people were slurping on what looked like udon. I thought it was perfect, that I'd get to eat a hot bowl of noodles on my first day in cold Japan.

Soon, in under twenty minutes, I was able to peek at what’s going on at the end of the line. There was this good-looking usher who asks how many persons for a table, guides the first ones in line to the ticket vending machine, on to the available table, then comes back to repeat the process.

At around seven on a weekend morning

I was able to make out the prices at the vending machine from my vantage point, but because my head was floating from lack of sleep and proper nourishment I was getting mixed up in converting the prices to Philippine peso, so that they came across as out of my league. I didn’t think of leaving, so near the end of the line, so I thought I’ll just get the cheapest bowl of noodles, and make up for the splurge by spending only so much the following day.

But when it was my turn the usher smiled, and in perfect English declared that the special recommendation was this one, pointing to the slot in the vending machine with the photo and price of the most expensive bowl, which I now know to be called tokusei tsukemen. That usher may have been a charmer, for no matter how rock-solid my resolve was a minute before, I inserted my money into the slot he pointed to.

I was seated at the bar – first-timer’s luck is luck ten-fold – where I could stare, fascinated, at the cooks strutting their stuff. The individuals seated around the bar were all males, with age range of late twenties to about the fifties. The younger ones were taking photos with their phones as their bowls were handed to them.

The first thing to land before me was a paper apron, followed shortly by my expensive noodles. It turned out to be tsukemen, the massive current Japanese rage, almost a deconstruction of the ramen – broad, firm ramen served cold and dry, with an accompanying bowl of thick soup for dipping. Tsuke in Nihonggo is "dip," while the men refers to the noodles, thus tsuke-men.

The JPY1,050 price tag had been due to the contents of the soup – everything that could be put on it as topping was there – the iconic slice of kamaboko (pink-spiraled fishball), buta hogushi (shredded pork), a square of nori (seaweed), on top of which is a special house blend of bonito powder, negi (chopped spring onion), and deep down at the bottom of the bronzed soup were memma (pickled bamboo shoots) and thick cuts of tender chashu. There was a whole ajitsuke tamago, marinated soft-boiled egg, firm but with a gelatinous center that was viscous and velvety.

The thick dipping sauce clings to the fat noodles, and there was no way to go about it but slurp, so the apron provided was really necessary. The myriad of ingredients would have been overwhelming if not for that characteristic tangy dimension that yuzu provides. The citrus edge more than just keeps one from taste fatigue, it actually whets the appetite.

Compared with the tsukemen I first tasted in the Philippines, the yuzu angle here is not forceful. It is there, subtly present but not intense, so that entirely the soup comes out well-balanced, with no single component sticking out by itself, all the flavors – umami, salty, peppery, tangy – complementing one another.

As I ate I maintained my peripheral vision active, so that I saw that the other diners seated along the bar, upon finishing their noodles, would hand their bowls of soup to the attendants, who would then fill them up from a thermos by the counter. The bowls would be handed back to their owners, who would then finish up the soup, At first I thought, the soup must be unlimited. But as I finished and handed my own bowl, I saw that a hot clear broth was poured on it (soup-wari), thinning the viscous leftovers and making it edible on its own. Which was thoughtful, because the bowl of noodles is more than a handful, and the lingering taste of that soup accompanied me as I walked happily along the dark, icy streets of Tokyo.

As it was, the tsukemen was an unplanned but very much welcome intrusion in my trip. It boded well for the rest of my stay in Japan – one of the highlights of the entire tour happened right during the first few hours that I was trodding on Nihon soil. And it wasn't even expensive - when my stomach had been filled and I was thinking right again, I realized the currency conversion I was using was the opposite of what it should be, and the price of the specialty bowl I had just eaten was equivalent to the price of (inferior) ramen in the Philippines.

Compared with the ramen bars I would subsequently eat in during the course of my vacation across Japan, the table was sparse, carrying only packets of bonito powder and the condiment tray of vinegar and chili oil.

The Tokyo Station

looking very much like a rail station in Europe

Rokurinsha
Website (Japanese)
Tokyo Station Ichibangai B1
Tokyo Ramen Street
1-9-1, 丸の内, Chiyoda, Tokyo 100-0005, Japan

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Hong Kong: Tsui Wah

A hot cup of nai cha or milk tea and a couple pieces of sweet buttered toast from Tsui Wah, plus a bowl of fish noodle soup, were the last things I had upon leaving Hong Kong.

Tsui Wah’s buttered toast was one of the things that made an impression on Anthony Bourdain during the Hong Kong episode of The Layover. I found the shop by the busy Des Voeux Road Central, on the other side of Connaught Road Central along which it is parallel, a large tea house all in glass walls and windows. But this must not have been the original stall that Anthony Bourdain visited, for that was just a tiny, hole-in-the-wall affair.

Anyway, trying this and that and looking for other things besides, the chance to try Tsui Wah slipped me by. But still, luck was on my side, because Tsui Wah was at the departure area of the Hong Kong airport. So I arrived early for my flight, and sat down to savor my last hour in Hong Kong with one of the city’s famous offerings.

The nai cha was how it should be, hot, creamy and not too sweet, the full-bodied tea providing a jolt to the senses. Which reminds me – in all of the four days I traveled along the expanses of Queen’s Road Central to West, Connaught Road Central to West, and Des Vouex Road, and exploring the malls all around Central, there was only one cold bubble milk tea shop I passed by, and that was a Gong Cha stall.

Hot milk tea – without the bubbles – can be ordered almost anywhere, though, especially in those tiny, family-run noodle shops. And of course there were all the teahouses serving complementary hot tea to your heart’s content, but without the milk.

But as for Tsui Wah’s buttered toast, which came slathered with condensed milk, I wasn’t too impressed. In fact upon the first bite I wondered what all the fuss was about. It was just an ordinary bun made chewy by the butter and condensed milk heating up to a slightly crackly thin layer after its stint in the oven.

It can be easily replicated at home, using better bread and taken to a myriad of directions. With cheese? Cream cheese! Or strawberry jam. Cream cheese and strawberry jam! Or mango jam! Even just simply butter – good, salted butter – and a generous sprinkling of white sugar, grilled until the sugar crystals have almost caramelized.

My bowl of rice noodles and fish balls was bland, as expected. All three were incidentally among Tsui Wah's top ten dishes. Tsui Wah’s milk tea is sold in take-home plastic bottles, so I bought several to compensate for the tetra packs of tea and cans of creams soda in my backpack that immigration officials confiscated because I forgot to insert them into my check-in luggage. The bottles were some of the things I brought home, along with several orders of baked buns from Tim Ho Wan, and a heaping of memories of food newly discovered and rediscovered.

But before I leave Hong Kong entirely, let me include a few other photos taken at the expansive Chek Lap Kok airport.

The female CR must be one of the most mother- and child-friendly lavatories in the world.

No, this is not a mirror image. And with that to muse over, I boarded my plane.

Tsui Wah Restaurant
Website

Tim Ho Wan
Lin Heung Kui
Yung Kee
Sheung Wan Dried Seafood Market
Strolling Around Sheung Wan
Eating Around Sheung Wan
Hotel Breakfast

Cliftons Event Catering

Monday, March 10, 2014

Hong Kong: Yung Kee

Yung Kee is a restaurant in Hong Kong island famous for its roasted goose. The resource person for the training-seminar I attended, who was an American married to a Hong Kong local and has lived in the area for fourteen years, declared the best roasted goose was in Kowloon, but that Yung Kee’s was just as good.

The night I went there I was told that the waiting time for a table was about an hour. Since my only free time to explore Hong Kong was in the evenings, an hour was a precious long time to wait to eat. I decided to check out the other recommended eating places on my list, but not to waste the effort going to Yung Kee, which involved an uphill hike, I went to the take-out counter. Since the minimum order is half a whole roasted goose, I thought it best to take it home to share.

The line at the take-out counter, which could be accessed from the road via a side door to the leftmost of the restaurant, was very short, and it took me about five minutes total of waiting time. The five minutes was well spent ogling the various kinds of cured meats on display by a wall, and the going to and fro of cooks and waiters in the ground floor dining area.

When my number was called I tried to explain that I wanted to take my goose back to the Philippines, and the elderly lady wrapping my purchase replied, ah yes, overseas! I’ll wrap it special for you!, proceeding to double wrap the fowl, putting it in a box along with the condiments, and putting extra elastic bands around it. I didn’t know then that I became one of the many who made Yung Kee’s the flying roast goose, because people from all over the world take it home.

I went out happy, and with renewed vigor for another eating adventure. But after going up and down the expat den that was Wellington Street two times carrying along my roasted goose, I couldn’t locate that braised beef noodle shop on my list. I was on the verge of opening the box when I chanced upon a Chinese guy lounging at the entrance to another restaurant, and I asked if he could identify the Chinese signboards of the shops nearby. He said no, as he was from China. I was flummoxed by his remark, so I asked if that made a difference. He laughed and said yes, a lot.

So I left and splurged US$300 on books instead, in a bookshop manned by Filipinas. When my physical hunger couldn’t be assuaged by soul food anymore, I hunted down Lin Heung Kui, which, I was surprised to find out, was just two blocks away from my hotel. But that is for tomorrow.

Yung Kee
32-40 Wellington Street
Central, Hong Kong
Website

Thursday, March 06, 2014

Hong Kong: Tim Ho Wan

I was in Hong Kong island for a three-day training program. Half of the seminar participants were Hong Kong residents, and right in the morning of the first day, during mid-morning break, I asked the natives where an out-of-towner might eat dinner.

As it was, the training program practically took much of the day, since we ended at five o’clock daily. Meals were provided, so that it was only during dinnertime that I got to see and explore Hong Kong island. But I soon realized that there wasn’t anything much to do after five, as malls closed at six, and I wasn't motivated enough to go all the way to Kowloon for the flea markets. I decided I’d just compensate by eating.

A classmate mentioned that there was this small dim sum place inside the IFC Mall, which was within walking distance from our training venue, that was always being mobbed by people, was Michelin-starred, and served actually good food. It went by the name of Tim Ho Wan, and was located by the level of the train tracks.

I had misgivings, for I distrusted malls. I decided to check it out, anyway, thinking I’d revert to my planned itinerary if it didn’t turn out promising.

Turns out it was most promising. Turns out it was a branch of the dim sum place Anthony Bourdain raved about in The Layover episode that I watched during my flight, and which had also popped up in my research. Turns out other people don't know much of the branch, for all the times I was there I never had to wait in a queue, just directed to a vacant table or made to share one with empty chairs left.

I almost missed it, though. The sign was exclusively in Chinese, and the open façade was very nondescript, looking indistinguishable from its neighboring food shops.

The dim sum was unparalleled, though. The baked buns with bbq pork alone was worth the trip – I wanted to eat them again for breakfast the following day. Three small siopao, the asado filling caramel-sweet and familiar, but unlike the baked siopao in the Philippines where they could be hard and dense as rocks, the baked buns evoked coffee buns with their sweet, milky melted tops and flaky, airy crumb.

steamed beef balls with beancurd skin

I wanted to try as much as I could of the other offerings, but I was alone, which proved a handicap in my ability to get a good sampling of the menu, however short it was. I had to go back every night to try one dim sum after another. When the other restaurants in my itinerary didn’t pan out, or I couldn’t find them, I went to Tim Ho Wan.

It wasn’t a pleasant experience going around Hong Kong Central and interacting with the locals. Tram drivers, restaurant wait staff, not a lot of them could understand and speak English, and instead of looking for other people to help they would just wave their hands away.

I had the same encounter at Tim Ho Wan right on the first day I was there. They had this checklist, in Chinese and in English, where you ticked your order. I tried to ask first what was in this dish, and for how many people it was good for, but there was the language barrier, and the server just waved me off and growled. What I couldn’t understand was that this dim sum joint was patronized by foreigners – all the days I was there half of the tables were occupied by Caucasians – but there was no effort to have at least one server who could service the non-Chinese speaking customers properly.

But I was enamored of the food, so I was willing to overlook this shortcoming. On the following days I just ticked what sounded interesting and handed my order slip with my mouth pressed tightly closed. My instincts were probably on alert, for most of my orders were exceptionally good. That is, except for the siomai (steamed pork dumpling with shrimp), which I found to be unremarkable pitted with the good ones in the Philippines.

The lotus-leaf-wrapped glutinous rice with chicken and mushrooms was large enough for at least two people, but it was so good I finished all of it. Desserts were equally remarkable, and they were visually arresting to boot. There were these squares of jelly that recalled embroidered Chinese silk, and tasted like the aromatic interiors of Chinese temples.

tonic medlar & petal cake

The Pinoy lelot balatong was probably descended from the Chinese dessert of red beans and glutinous rice, which was milky and sweet.

On my last day in Hong Kong I had to go back to Tim Ho Wan to buy several orders of the baked pork bun to bring home. The cashier, to whom you pay on your way out of the restaurant, uttered, “Every day!” It was probably one of the very few English words she knew, but yes, I could eat there every day.

Wandering around SM Mall of Asia a few days ago I saw a tarpaulin covering a stall under construction announcing Tim Ho Wan to be opening soon. I hope it's a branch of this revered Hong Kong favorite. I'll be waiting in anticipation, to try all the other dim sum I missed, but mostly to have a taste of those heavenly buns again.

Tim Ho Wan
Shop 12A, Podium Level 1
IFC Mall
Hong Kong Central Station

Friday, June 14, 2013

Kipil

I go to the market every weekend, stocking up on fish and vegetables for the next seven days as I work during weekdays. I buy what is in season and what is abundant during my market days. Sometimes a variety of fish overflows all the bins that it sells so cheap, and I am prevailed upon to bring home kilos of it. This is why my husband buys me large two-door refrigerators with huge freezers (we've moved residence from one city to another a total of four times ever since we got married, leaving each ref each time to buy a new one).

When a fish is at a particularly give-away price and my suki fishmonger tells me to buy two kilos, I roll my eyes and ask what will I do with all those fish shivering rock-hard in my freezer? And each time, I extricate a precious nugget of information on the stand-bys of local cooking.

One that's repeated itself is this - buy kipil, and make pangat. I've had this advice for those pretty in pink dalagang-bukid, and for small round scad, allegedly the "real" galunggong, called galunggong lalaki in Cavite City.

And what is kipil? It is pronounced maragsa, accent on the second syllable. I've only seen kipil in Cavite City and nowhere else, but I'm sure every Filipino and most Southeast Asians are familiar with it. For it is not known by that name, and is not used like this.

For kipil is the flesh of peeled ripe tamarind, or sampalok, lumped into a stony, sticky, gooey bronze mound that survives in open air throughout the year. This is the same ripe fruit made into those stony rolls of sweetened tamarind sporting cubed crystals of salt. Green, unripe tamarind is also sold when in season, but for sinigang. The kipil is more common, and is for pangat.

When I was new in Cavite City I was curious, but wasn't baffled, thinking Tagalogs like slightly sweetened dishes, having tasted their nilaga with corn or saba, or adobo with caramelized sugar. I was thinking, of course, about those sweet tamarind rolls.

Two fish vendors had two methods of using kipil - the one selling dalagang-bukid said to wash the handful of kipil, and top it on fish boiling in water seasoned with soy sauce, onions and peppercorns. The galunggong vendor instructed me to manually dissolve the kipil in a pot of water and strain it into the fish, adding the soy sauce, onions and peppercorns and boiling like in adobo.

I am a Pangasinense, so I had to add a thumb of ginger peeled and diced, like we do with all dishes we cook. I tried both methods, and found that the dalagang-bukid version is tailored for that delicate fish.

I prefer the galunggong way, though, as it imbues the fish, and the sauce, with the sourness of the tamarind that wakes up that collective national liking for tart dishes. But both kinds of fish do not lend very well to long cooking, disintegrating into spiny bones.

So I went out of my way and tried kipil with tulingan, which is ever-present in the public market at stable prices. Tulingan, after all, is famous in that Batanguena dish that stews seven hours in a pangat using dried kamias. Its firm flesh and thick bones are ideal for long stewing, absorbing flavors like sponge.

So I am now partly indoctrinated into Cavite cooking, but like most cuisines, my kipil dish is an inter-marriage of regional methods and ingredients. What I can't get over, though, is the intense sourness of the kipil. I grew up eating sweetened sampalok, after all, and I am psyched to expect that if it is dyed bronze it must be sweet. So while I was stewing the kipil and found it to be not a tad sweet I had to add a spoonful of sugar. It didn't really turn out to be a sweetened pangat, but it cut the sourness somewhat. And I found that I can be a Tagalog, too.

Kamias

Batwan

Impangat

Malabanos

Cavite City Fish

Bagaong

Alakaak

Carabao Beef

Cavite Tamales

Turmeric

Kasilyo

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Black Summer

"goma" sundae

The proliferation of Korean and Japanese restaurants and food outlets in metropolitan cities is affording us a glimpse into the food culture of our Asian neighbors. One that I couldn't fail to notice - much because it is not common in the Philippines - is the use of black sesame.

I only know of one Filipino dish that uses linga, and that is palitaw, boiled sticky discs of ground glutinous rice flour eaten sprinkled with grated coconut meat, sugar and white or toasted sesame seeds. But the use of linga is not an absolute - not all the palitaw I've eaten around the country boasts of sesame seed topping.

In Pangasinan, for example, we don't use it, but there is a variant made by my in-laws that submerges the dough discs in a viscous sauce aromatic with toasted linga and does away with the dry toppings, called masikoy. But the sesame seeds used are white, toasted in a hot pan to bring out the nuttiness and for color. For a while I thought all sesame seeds were white, and the brown and black ones were only according to toasting preferences.

I'm curious, though, because the children's folk song Bahay Kubo speaks of sesame plants flourishing all around a countryside backyard, and yet indigenous Filipino cuisine doesn't seem to have much use for it. Of course now sesame is in much use, the seeds as topping for burger buns, and as coating for buchi. I liberally use sesame seed oil as flavoring for noodles and vegetables. And in Asian restaurants we have battered fried meats and stews sprinkled with sesame seeds. But all these are rooted in cuisines outside our country.

black sesame milk tea

This summer was explosive with black sesame seeds. The nuttiness was ground and made into a tar-like paste to top the goma sundae at Pepper Lunch, while a sprinkling of white sesame seeds ensured that the flavor is unescapable. It is heavenly, akin to eating cold, melting palitaw that does not sink as a rock in the gut.

I don't like Serenitea milk teas that much, but the selection is so varied that I go there intermittently to taste-test. The black sesame milk tea caught my eye, and tongue. With a choice of roasted tea or assam as the base tea, it can be had hot or cold. I prefer the cold version, of course, in this heat. The black sesame is not even a flavored syrup, but real seeds that have been ground to a coarse powder so the drink comes out gritty. It is similar to the goma sundae, in melted form, and drinking it is like drinking a liquid palitaw.

Outlets of the Korean bakery Tous Le Jours sprouted like mushrooms all over the metropolis, enlightening Pinoys to French goodies with a Korean/Asian touch. It is like a trendier, and more expensive, version of pioneer Bread Talk, without the floss.

Several pastries sport black sesame seeds atop, like a crown of sparse cropped hair, but remarkable is one of their bestsellers, sweet black rice bread with black sesame cream cheese. An immaculate bun gets an ebony spray, and cradles inside a generous filling of cream cheese pocked with the seeds that shatter with crunch and nuttiness with every bite.

It's like palitaw and siopao and cheesecake all in one.

At katsu Japanese specialty restaurant Yabu the condiment tray adorning every table invites diners to season and spice the otherwise insipid battered fried meats and seafood. But served with the entrees is a small bowl with notched interiors for grinding the spoonful of keyboard-hued sesame seeds. Grind to preference, then ladle in the gooey, dark-brown dipping sauce that's reminiscent of worcestershire and teriyaki.

The sesame salad dressing with black sesame seeds peeking out is slurpable, and is excellent both with the katsu and the unlimited shredded cabbage. I've found a similar salad dressing at the supermarket under the Kewpie brand, and it is just as good, and maybe even better, since I can have it at home to douse on whatever I fancy.

Among all the sweets mentioned in this post, the Mochi Sweets' black sesame mochi is the closest in taste and texture to palitaw. For of course both are made with ground rice dough so they have the sticky, chewy feel. But least of all is the black sesame taste tasted here, for it seems the filling is extended with black beans or dyed sweet potato. Which is unfair, considering the price of this small treat.

Palitaw

Masikoy

Unda-Unday

Bahay Kubo

Bahay kubo, kahit munti
Ang halaman doon ay sari-sari
Singkamas at talong, sigarillas at mani
Sitaw, bataw, patani

Kundol, patola, upo’t kalabasa
At saka meron pa, labanos, mustasa
Sibuyas, kamatis, bawang at luya
Sa paligid-ligid ay puno ng linga

Roughly translated as:

Bahay Kubo
(Filipino folk song)

Nipa hut, even though small
the plants surrounding it are varied and many
turnips and eggplants, winged beans and peanuts
yard-long beans, hyacinth beans, lima beans

wax gourd, sponge gourd, bottle gourd, squash
and there’s more, radish, mustard
onions, tomatoes, garlic and ginger
the surrounding spaces filled with sesame

Monday, April 01, 2013

Bisita Iglesia - Coastal Cavite: Naic

Diocesan Shrine of the Immaculate Conception

P. Poblete Street, Naic, Cavite

The parish church in the municipality of Naic is the largest church in the province of Cavite, and the only one built in the Neo-Gothic style. It was one of the jubilee churches in Cavite during the last Jubilee Year (2000).

It was unfortunate that when we got there the facade was undergoing a facelift, covered in a spiderweb tangle of scaffoldings. But the convent, to the church's right side, and its maginificent courtyard more than made up for our disappointment.

The convent, or at least the dining and receiving areas, had large capiz windows that were opened to let in the brisk breeze. Looking inside and seeing the waxed hardwood floors and the heavy narra furniture I felt transported to the time of panuelos and karitelas drawn over cobblestone streets.

In this convent was written the morally instructive book Urbana at Felisa (p. 1864) by the former parish priest Modesto De Castro. The book was celebrated in its time, and affords present readers with a look into nineteenth century societal structures.

The colossal stone blocks making up the outer walls belie the church's age, having been built by the Dominicans in 1796. A patio is lined with meditation benches, and surrounded by bas reliefs of all the mysteries of the holy rosary. All around flowering ornamentals explode in a riot of vibrant colors, growing lush in an arbor shading a walkway. Mayas dive and lunge from the roof, unmindful and unafraid, their ceaseless chattering joining the pigeons and hens with their broods in a rupture of joyful clamor.

Inside the church beautiful stained glass windows adorning the walls all around let in light, highlighting the elegantly carved wooden altars in the sanctuary and both sides of the transept. The reason why this is a piligrimage church need not be explained to me - I would make the journey to experience again the serenity I felt inside the church and in the convent patio.

*With a clean public CR at the convent patio.

Historical Significance

Casa Hacienda de Naic (beside the church)
- where Andres Bonifacio was tried and imprisoned
- where Emilio Aguinaldo designed his flag "Sun of Liberty," and when he became the first president this is where he established the four departments of his cabinet.

Pit Stop

Across the covered court are refreshment carts selling Naic's muche, neon orange-hued thick discs of fried rice dough filled with sweetened mashed mung beans (monggo). Nice afternoon crispy treat newly fried, but the dough tends to harden after a few hours.

Directions

From the last Bisita Iglesia church - Tanza

About 13 kilometers south-southwest.

By Private Vehicle

- From the gate of the Tanza church turn right onto San Agustin Street to go back to Antero Soriano Highway, passing by Felipe Calderon Elementary School and the Tanza National Comprehensive High School, and an Iglesia ni Cristo church.Turn right at the junction where Mc Donalds is across the street, then go straight along the highway, and onto the Naic-Ternate Road. The church is beside a covered auditorium/basketball court.

- By Public Transportation

Walk to the town plaza in front of the Tanza church and flag a jeep with the signboard Bacao-Binakayan, or a baby bus with the signboard SM Rosario/Cavite City, or tell a tricycle driver to take you to where you can catch a ride to Naic. Get off at Antero Soriano Highway (on the same side as Jollibee/Lots'a Pizza/Puregold, across the road from McDonalds), and flag a bus with the signboard Naic/Ternate/Maragondon. Towards Naic buses turn left at the junction by a Petron gas station. Get off at Petron, then board a tricycle for Naic church.

From Manila

By Private Vehicle

- Naic is 47 kms. out of Manila, traversing Coastal Road (Pasay City & Las Pinas), Cavitex (Manila Cavite Expressway), Centennial Road (EPZA Diversion Road), and the Antero Soriano Highway.

By Public Transportation

- Air-conditioned buses with signboards Naic/Ternate/Maragondon get passengers starting from Plaza Lawton (Liwasang Bonifacio), traversing Taft Avenue, turning to Quirino Avenue, then left onto Roxas Boulevard and then on to the Coastal Road, Cavitex and the Antero Soriano Highway. Get off at the fork to the Naic poblacion by a Petron gas station, then board a tricycle for the church.

The Other Churches in the Coastal Cavite Bisita Iglesia
St. Michael the Archangel Church, Bacoor
St. Mary Magdalene Church, Kawit
Holy Cross Church, Noveleta
San Roque Church (Nuestra Senora Soledad de Porta Vaga Shrine), Cavite City
Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary Church, Rosario
Holy Cross Church, Tanza