Poqui-poqui Face-Off: Saramsam and Preciosa

During my visit to Laoag City, I had the fortune of eating at two premier restaurants, Saramsam Ylocano Restaurant and Bar and La Preciosa. Saramasam means an informal gathering, or pica-pica, and is quite the iconoclast, serving traditional regional dishes in different ways, such as the dinuguan (blood stew) pizza. La Preciosa Restaurant is more traditional, and is the favorite restaurant in the city per the website Tripadvisor.

Poqui-poqui may be named unfortunately (it's a Tagalog vulgar term for vagina), but it sure tastes heavenly. It's basically eggplants, eggs, onions, and tomatoes. The first time I tried it it was vaguely familiar, until I remembered how my father  was so fond of a version that uses no eggplant at all. It dawned of me I've been eating a variant since childhood.

Saramsam's version uses smoky eggplant, and this reminded me of the home-style goodness of meals cooked in wood of my childhood. 

La Preciosa's is saucier, and the onions used were so fresh they were sweetish. Of the two versions I'm partial to the latter. Forgive the unfortunate picture composition, but La Preciosa's is the tastier dish.

Ilocos Norte's Saramsam Restaurant for Bagnet

Bagnet with KBL (kamatis, bagoong, lasona). Bagnet is a staple in Ilocano cuisine, so be sure to sample it when traveling north of the country. These are pork chunks that are boiled, air-dried, and deep-fried. 

Bagnet appears to me as hefty chicharon, and I prefer it, along with my lechon, with fermented fish sauce, tomatoes, and native onions, as pictured above. Lasona is a potent onion variant. It is a favorite of my grandfather, and when he was alive he'd usually have it as relish, or the main dish.

Saramsam Ylocano Restaurant and Bar

Laoag City

(+63) 77 771 5825

Ilocos Norte's La Preciosa for Crispy Dinuguan (Blood Stew) and Kilawin na Tanigue (Mackerel Ceviche)

No trip to Laoag is complete without going to La Preciosa Restaurant. A quick look at Tripadvisor yields the  factoid that it is ranked #1 among 22 restaurants in the city. If you're after a sampling of Iloko cuisine, such as higado, poqui-poqui, pakbet, and bagnet, go no further. I came for the crispy dinuguan. I left charmed by the kinilaw na tanigue as well. 

A quick note: dinuguan is a stew of meat and/or offal cooked in pork blood, garlic, green chilis, and vinegar.

the fried pork makes this dinuguan extraordinary. i love the crunch and the thick sauce

mackerel ceviche. the use of vinegar was just right, allowing the
creamy goodness of the fish to shine though

La Preciosa Restaurant
JP Rizal Laoag City
(+63) 77 773 1162

Margarita's Paella Negra at the Salcedo Saturday Market

I love weekend markets, and my favorite would have to be the Salcedo Saturday market. Every time I visit, I'm drawn to the stall of Margarita's Paella. So far I have not been disappointed.

Margarita's paella negra is the bomb! Squid ink paella lovers, this is for you--bursting with flavors of the sea, in this case generous amounts of squid and shrimp. Cutting through the rich, kraken flavor are garlic and the pop of citrus. I asked the server to scrape for me the rice directly toasted by the pan, as this part is crunchier, tastier.

The stall's other offerings of Spanish food appear to be well-regarded as well.

Salcedo Weekend Market

L. P. Leviste Street, Jaime Velasquez Park, Salcedo Village, Makati City 

Open Saturdays, 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. 

Bohol's Inday's Ube Jam

Ube, also known as purple yam, is a tuber originally from the Asian tropics. Most of us are familiar with it's incarnation either as ice cream or jam, and these tend to be too sweet . Ube jam is particularly highly perishable, and is thus consumed with dispatch. When I think of ube, I associate it with the ube jams of Baguio City.

In a recent trip to Bohol, I was surprised to find our how important ube is to the province, a buffer to famine in the olden times. Boholanos are proud of their ube, and they claim that they produce the best ones. When they drop it accidentally, they kiss it as a sign of reverence. It is the provincial plant. It is included in the provincial hymn. A festival is held in the province in its honor every January. Bohol is the largest producer of ube in the country.

We were fortunate to have come across Inday's ube jam--creamy, not too sweet, allowing the delicate flavor of the purple yam to come through.

Inday's Ube Jam
#5 Mendoza Street, Tagbilaran City
(+63) 38 501-8747

Laguna's Nila's Special Puto Biñan

My friend brought this to the office one day, and it was so good. It was cheesy, moist, subtly sweet. Having grown up in Pangasinan eating Calasiao puto, I know that cheese and puto goes well together.

The curiously named puto is steamed rice cake common in the Philippines. There are many varieties of puto, some of them I have featured before. In Calasiao, the puto is small, moist, and sweetish, and usually comes plain without any toppings. The Biñan variety is the size of a plate and can handily feed 5 people. 

Biñan is a city in Laguna located south of Manila. It is said that the best-known makers of this variety is located in the barangay of San Vicente. Pictured below is Nila's Special Puto Biñan. You can reach them at (+63) 49 511-6094. I'm not sure if there's an outlet in Manila--my friend sources hers from Laguna.

Boon Tong Kee's Hainanese Chicken Rice

Just a quick note: I have always thought white chicken and Hainanese chicken were the same. They're not, apparently. Although both are of Chinese origin, white chicken is cooked in salt and ginger, and when the water begins to boil, the fire is turned off, allowing the chicken to cook in the residual heat, leaving the chicken pale and translucent. Th accompanying dip is made of ginger, onions, salt, and hot oil. Haianense chicken, on the other hand, is a popular in Malaysia and Singapore, and is the latter's national dish. Plumper chicken are are repeatedly boiled in chicken stock with ginger and garlic, and the resulting broth is used for the rice and the accompanying broth. It features a trio of sauces--chili sauce, pounded ginger, dark soy sauce.

I love both--I still remember a small Chinese restaurant, now closed, in Vito Cruz that served excellent white dish. I'm unlucky, though, with Hainanese chicken--the versions I tasted were unremarkable, until I learned from several blogs that Singaporean chain Boon Tong Kee has opened a branch in SM-Mall of Asia.

Let's get it out of the way--their Hainanese Chicken Rice was excellent. Imagine plump, juicy, tender chicken, very subtle and flavorful. Up until then, I never really appreciated the need for three sauces, but the trio of sweet, spicy, and gingery was just right. 

The rice, shaped like little pyramids, was also flavorful, adding another layer of chicken goodness.

Of the three sauces, I'm partial to the minced ginger.

The quarter chicken costs P245, the chicken rice, P65. Comes with 10% service charge.

Boon Tong Kee 

SM Mall of Asia, Pasay City

(+63) 02 804-2862