Braving Bacolod Series #4 - Food Trippin'

Bacolod is also about food. And food. And food.

MANOKAN COUNTRY 
It's not called Manokan Country for nothing.  They serve the best chicken inasal.  100% fresh chicken means juicier and tastier.  Mang Inasal pales in comparison.  So what's on the menu? Chicken!

Chicken rules!

Chicken Parts 101 (Just so you know what you're getting yourselves into.)
Petso-Pak - breast
Paa - thigh
Pak-pak - wing
Isol - Ass
Liog - Neck
Atay - Liver
Baticolon - Gizzard
Heart - Heart
Tina-e - Intestines (entrails)

For the complete inasal experience, prepare your dipping sauce (mine has their vinegar - sinamak, calamansi and soy sauce), put some atsuete oil in your rice and eat with your hands.

If only for the chicken inasal and the 35pesos-per-serving oysters, I will go back to Bacolod many times over.

DETAILS: 
Lion's Park Grill House
Manokan Country, Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, Philippines
Landline: (+6334) 433-4747; (+6334) 476-6877



THE RUINS
They have a Pizzeria and a main restaurant.  Both can bring your food anywhere around The Ruins.  We have ours delivered at a table near the water fountain.  It was memorable.

Nagpapaka-Italian!

The sun about to set. The Ruins glowing from a distance. Then, there's the soothing sound of the water fountain.  And us, feasting on garlic and cheese pizza, (regular 10-inch), mirene pizza (pesto, anchovy and mozzarella pizza), pasta carbonara and pasta puttanesca.

DETAILS: 

The Ruins

Hda. Sta. Maria, Talisay City, Negros Occidental, Philippines

Landline: (+6334) 476-4334
Mobile:  (+63917) 832-6003

Website: http://theruins.com.ph/

CALEA
Being a sweet tooth that I am, I need a regular sugar fix. So Calea, being popular to bloggers, was a shoo-in. Well, it was love at first sight. The cakes and pastries on display were enticing.  The interiors - in shabby chic white and baby blue - added to the enticement.

Sweets for my Sweet

We had four slices of their best sellers - chocolate cake, blueberry cheesecake, pecan caramel and butter sansrival.  All of them are good. Walang tulak-kabigin.  But if I'll be asked to choose just one... Pwedeng 2?  It would be a toss between the chocolate cake and the blueberry cheesecake.  And for just P85 pesos per slice, I must say the calories were worth it.

DETAILS: 

Calea Pastries and Coffee
Ground Floor, Lourdes-C Bldg., Lacson St., Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, Philippines 
(Main Branch)
Landline: (+6334) 433-8664

BONGBONG'S and MERCI
 We don't go home without pasalubongs. It's our way of bringing a piece of the place we've been to, to our loved ones who weren't able to be with us during the trip.

We had a stopover at BongBong's. It was like a showroom of pasalubongs. They have racks and racks of native delicacies.  Since it's known for piaya and barquillos, we brought home some of those, plus some others - pastillas, camote chips, sugar free banana chips, banadas, biscocho, cheese tarts, pastillas de mangga. We brought home 2 boxes from BongBong's. I was impressed with their "boxing technology."  Gone were the days when they need plastic cords to tie the box mano-mano for easy carrying. Now,they use the machine and voila! The boxes were tied in no time.

Bring 'em home

I passed by Merci Pasalubong in one of our night strolls.  I bought some of their merchandise too.  Barquillos, biscocho, piaya, butterscotch and mango tarts.  Not to put down BongBong's but I think Merci has the better-tasting biscocho - buttery and sugary.  And their butterscotch has the right amount of sweetness.  And their barquillos were thicker and milkier.  It was my first encounter with Merci, a rendezvous in the near future would be most welcome.

DETAILS: 

BongBong's Bacolod's Finest Delicacy
Corner Pauline and Alijis Road, Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, Philippines
Landline: (+6334) 434-2626

Website: http://www.bongbongspiaya.com/

Merci Pasalubong

Mandalagan (Lopue's Mandalagan), Lacson Street, Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, Philippines
Landline: (+6334) 709-1788

Website: http://www.merci.com.ph/

EL IDEAL
As one of the oldest bakeshop in Silay, El Ideal, has become part of a tourist's itinerary. It's located at the ground floor of the Cesar Lacson Locsin Ancestral House, a National Historical Institute-certified heritage structure. The bakery has been in existence since the 1920s and its operations has been handed down from generation to generation.

Feasting on Kakanins

So what did we have here?  The guapple pie (a bestseller), lumpiang sariwa (the sauce is already inside the wrapper), cassava cake, baye-baye (sticky dessert made from newly harvested rice), 2 other kakanins I couldn't remember.  We give two thumbs up to the lumpiang sariwa and the 2 kakanins - the one wrapped in banana leaves tastes like biko only it's purple, baka may ube; the other one tastes like tikoy with coconut strips.  All of it perished in no time.

DETAILS: 
El Ideal Bakery & Refreshment 
118 Rizal St., Silay City, Negros Occidental, Philippines
Landline: (034) 495-4430
Website: http://elideal.multiply.com/
 

DISCLAIMER:  We paid for everything.  There were no ex-deals.  Nor utang na loob.  We got some discounts because we haggled (and use some charm, of course).  Everything here is based entirely on our family's experience.