I took the late night bus to Baguio to join the two men following the Norwesterniana speaking engagement. The temperature was freezing! At 5 AM, I needed something to wake me up. Good Taste was out of the way. I walked around the Central Bus Terminal, and noticed young Koreans swarming up at a goto kiosk. Like some stalker, I ordered what they were having. The lugaw was strangely very yellow. If the color is from margarine or chicken cubes, I’m not sure, but it was really delicious, especially with the extra heaping of fried garlic. I think I need to find ways of enjoying chewy tripe, other than in paksiw and callos.
It took long to wake up the 2 men. We had the whole Sunday morning for a food adventure. My photos were actually rearranged. We had cold cakes first thing in the morning, then walked to the market to buy Tantamco’s ube jam, and then we drove to Good Shepherd to get Alexa her chocolate crinkles before heading to the Ketchup Food Communuty across the Wright Park.
Ketchup Food Community is a cluster of restaurants with varying specialties. The place is very charming. Noticed more Baguio locals than tourists, maybe because it was a Sunday and it’s a stone’s throw from the St. Joseph Church. The resident restaurants are Canto, Happy Tummy, Rancho Norte, Green Pepper and Rumah Sate. We chose to have just Indonesian sate barbecue at Rumah Sate.
The laksa and mie goreng looked fabulous, but no one would share the humungous servings, and prawns were out of stock, so I just ordered three different kinds of skewered beef — sate padang in hot and spicy yellow sauce, sate ampat sasak in spicy coconut cream and sweet and spicy sate manis and some iced lime tea. If you don’t like herbs and spices, this might not be the place for you. We did like the BBQ especially the one with curry. Prices are tourist friendly, kinda in the middle. I’m definitely going back to this place to try the other specialties like mie goreng and the fried fish with interesting sauce I saw on the other table.
Happy Tummy is a Thai food place I’ve heard about from foodie friends. I also want to go there when I go back to the mountain city in April.
Visco’s Restaurant and Cake Shop is on Session Rd near Don Henrico’s. I’ve had their strawberry shortcake last year, but didn’t get to feature it ‘coz I left my cam in the hotel room and we were supposedly just going to check out the night market. Anyways, we went back to take photos of their bestselling strawberry shortcake, which is receiving so much attention as of late. I discovered though that strawberry tart is the better strawberry pastry. We ended up sharing two slices of the pie.
Visco’s strawberry shortcake is on the sweet side. The frosting is flavored as well as the sponge. My standard for strawberry shortcake is by Louise’s Trattoria, one of my favorite restos in LA. It’s really a plain creamy cake with strawberries.
This is the insane strawberry tart! It’s not exceedingly sweet. The thin layer of bittersweet chocolate brings out the best in the sourish strawberries. Looove the cream filling! I don’t want to say much, ‘coz, sometimes, you know, taste is subjective. If you’ll notice, I rarely rave about food in my features.
Puto bumbong in Ganza’s. It’s a Filipino delicacy that’s popular on Christmas time.
Tantamco’s is our favorite ube jam. It’s such a hassle going to the market sometimes because of the parking problem, so Good Shepherd’s is another option.
At Good Shepherd Convent, there’s this adobo roll at the kiosk that the mister loves a lot. They have really good brewed coffee here. I had the Kalinga musang (civet cat) brew with smooth, intense flavor.
He says it is the ampao-ness of the bread that he likes.
We reached the Philippine Military Academy trying to locate Palagana’s Bakery, famous for hotel quality raisin bread. One student was almost late for class picture. It reminds me of the sad fate of cadet Cudia.
We brought home a loaf of the raisin bread. Only 100 pesos. Try their awesome cinnamon roll!
Palagana’s Bakery is on 99 Loakan Road, Scout Barrio (right across the police outpost near the Camp John Jay entrance, or it it exit? It’s just a small bakery and the raisin bread is not even among the display.
Mnnn, long Johns! Until my next Baguio food adventure this summer!
The Part 1 of this Baguio’s homegrown eats (here).
Photographed by Blauearth © Blauearth™ All Rights Reserved 2009-2014
