Naga City's Avenue Plaza Hotel for Laing and Banoffee Crunch

While looking at my archives, I decided to share with you some of the more memorable dishes I had while staying at Naga's Avenue Plaza Hotel. What I love about the hotel is that their food is delicious, not the usual bland characterless meals most hotels serve. They also serve excellent desserts.

 I love their laing--it was creamy spicy salty, and best with big mound of freshly cooked rice.

Their banoffee crunch, an English dessert pie made from banans and toffee, was sweet and creamy. It was hard to stop at one serving.

Happy eating!

Avenue Plaza Hotel
Magsaysay Ave., Naga City
(+63) 54 473 999

Camarines Sur's Avenue Plaza Hotel for Excelente and Mango Royale Ice Cream Cake

My favorite hotel in Naga City is Avenue Plaza Hotel, not only because of its great hospitality and excellent design, but also because they serve wonderful meals. Their desserts are to die for, and it's quite difficult picking the best from the lot. My colleagues and I agree, though, that these desserts are a must-try: 

everyone's favorite: the aptly named excelente. reminds me of black forest--vanilla ice cream
coated in choco syrup, surrounded by milk and white choco dips and strawberry drizzle

the mango royale ice cream cake. just the right sweetness. and quite addictive, too.
my office-mate, who wasn't into sweets, wasn't able to resist another serving

The Avenue Plaza Hotel

Magsaysay Ave., Naga City 

(+63) 54 473 999

Surigao City's Seafood, Freshwater Goby and Eel, Tubers, and Ricecakes

If you're wondering where I took the picture in my blog header, this post is for you. Strong community ties characterize many rural areas in the Philippines, and when they welcome guests, they do it in a big way. I was fortunate to be part of a group that was at the receiving end of such a warm welcome at various places in Surigao City, located at the north-easternmost tip of Mindanao.

When I saw the lunch spread at an island community, I felt like it was Christmas in September--fresh catch from the sea, yam and sweet potatoes, durian and papaya. It was breath-taking.

Good-bye, diet!

Here's a pic of what I ate (clockwise, from top): sea-grapes, clam meat kinilaw/cebiche (like oysters, but smoother tasting), saang/spider conch (delicately flavored), raw Pacific white clams (tastes like balut--look it up), and grilled squid. Right smack in the middle is parrot-fish. I find its blue bones interesting. 

At another dinner I ate sea-grapes, grilled prawns on a stick, the best grilled tuna panga (jaw) i ever tasted, seafood chopseuy, pandan chicken, crab laden with fat, luscious lanzones, and rice cake with choco swirls.

At yet another dinner I came across excellent grilled tuna. I also tried, on the left, boneless pidianga (goby), which is cured before being sun-dried. On the right is spicy eel, sourced from Mainit Lake, Surigao, just like pidianga.

At the hotel, we were served espasol (rice cake made from rice flour cooked in coconut milk and sweetened coconut strips), sprinkled with peanut bits, while on the left is kalamay (sticky delicacy made of coconut milk, brown sugar, and ground glutinous rice). The latter reminds me of Leyte province's moron, a type of rice cake. I just love the presentation.

It has been two years since our visit to Surigao City, but memories of the warm welcome and fabulous food remain. Can't wait to return.

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Bicol's Pinangat

I’m back! Today I’ll blog about pinangat, one of Bicol’s signature dishes.

Whenever I travel to Bicol, I look forward to its cuisine, heavy with coconut and siling labuyo (capsicum annuum), the small but potent indigenous chili. Bicol, about 8 to 12 hours bus drive from Manila, is one of the 17 regions of the Philippines, located at the southeastern corner of the main island of Luzon. Last month I asked one of my colleagues to bring something back from Naga City, located in the heart of Bicol, as I’m desk-bound for the most part of March and April.

A few days later my pasalubong, four frozen pinangat individually wrapped in banana leaves, arrived in a clear, plastic packet. After a few seconds in the microwave my dinner was ready. It was not as spicy as I wanted, but I still enjoyed the buttery mix of gabi (taro), coconut milk and pork, best paired with hot steaming rice. It was towards the end that I sensed a mild raking in my throat, but I was already too happy to notice.

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