Masskara: Sugary smiles, arts, and eats
Despite predictions of rain, the sun shone down on us as we landed in Bacolod, the land of sugar, sweetness and smiles. The city is surrounded by verdant fields of sugar cane which produce the key ingredient in Bacolod’s famous desserts. As always, a feast accompanies every visit to this southern belle, which never loses her genteel touch even as she glides into an ever-progressive future.
The feast that is Bacolod has a good deal to do with food, of course. Between the golden orange chicken inasal, the addictive beef kansi with its subtly sour broth and comforting bowls of KBL (kadios, baboy, langka), your tummy will already be happy. But the city’s heritage restaurants, beloved chicken houses, and exquisite bakeshops will beguile you with so much more.
Apart from food, there is a feast of fine arts, with world-class galleries like Orange Project at the Art District off Lacson Avenue. There is Jojo Vito’s Designs Gallery, which carries the designer’s happy line of masks. You can even paint your own mask. We scooped up lovely coffee art from the McDonald’s at The Upper East, which supports local artists. There are heritage houses in Silay and the iconic, romantic ruins where you can dream of lost love.
Bacolod’s penultimate feast lies in its spectacular festivities, namely the Masskara festival. This is no shallow merrymaking but the city’s determination to put on more than just a brave face in the light of twin catastrophes. A plunge in the fortunes of the sugar industry and the sinking of the Don Juan in 1980 could have driven the people to despair. Instead, they rallied and established the Masskara festival, an exuberant display of color, music, dance, and bravura. They chose to smile through adversity and today, the festival is a joyous celebration.
Masskara marks its anniversary every October in Bacolod and the Megaworld Upper East township is happy to partner with the local government by providing the land and plenty of support. “Real festivals and real estate go together,” declares Harold Geronimo, vice president and head of PR and Media Affairs of Megaworld Corporation. The commitment of this development company to growing and working hand in hand with LGUs adds to the value that it offers to clients, tenants, visitors, and most especially, the locals.
Mayor Greg Gasataya told us that to achieve his goal of a bigger, brighter, and even more spectacular Masskara, he looked back to his childhood. Back then, growing up in Bacolod, it was compulsory in PE class for all students to dance for the festival. He aims to invoke this emotional connection into Masskara by involving all sectors of Bacolod society so that everyone feels part of the celebration. Festival director Rodney Ascalon also supplied us with details of the Electric Masskara parade at The Upper East. We could hardly wait for Friday!
This southern sojourn began, appropriately, with a food trip. From the airport, our host Geronimo took us on a scenic drive to Mt. Batag, to the Duyan Cafe in Lantawan, a highland baranggay. We had the best breakfast, the very definition of kakanin that included ibos and but-ong (like suman) amid a lush mountain setting. No matter what unfinished business we left behind in Manila, we felt our cares swept away by the chilly mountain breeze.
From breakfast, we drove past the soothing sight of endless green fields with nary a commercial sign in sight. Before we knew it, we had pulled up to our hotel, Citadines, and crossed the street for lunch at Mushu. Chef JP Anglo is a partner at this fusion restaurant where the most basic siomai and hakaw were perfection. The chicken rice was, for me, more moist than the best I’ve tried in Singapore. The winners were a sublime pritchon and inasal sisig.
We don’t need a title to be known as a culinary capital. A taste is all you need. But we had more than a taste when we moved on to Quan, a beloved kakanin empire where we enjoyed bowls of hot kansi, napoleons, cassava cake, and bread pudding. I had three golden suns, scraping every bit of the thick yema off the cupcake wrapper that held rounds of sponge cake.
Dinner that night at Azucarena served up delicious paella Negra, paella Valenciana, tapas of chorizo and croquetas; callos, chicken in a piquant sauce, and your choice of desserts from heritage restaurant Bob’s. At our fourth meal of the day, we still managed to polish off the best leche flan and mango filled pavlova. And believe it or not, this was followed by a food crawl back at The Upper East! We walked through Masskanamit where food stalls offered grilled skewers, fruity shakes and novelty desserts. Tummies filled, we slept like babies.
On our second day, any hopes we might have had of eating not quite so much were dashed as we began a new food trip slash food crawl slash food binge. For lunch, Harold took us to the newly refurbished, heritage restaurant Bob’s for their endearing delights—lengua, grilled marlin, molo soup, adobong pusit, and the surprising hit, baked beans. This homey comfort food is now served in a space that has become very sleek and polished.
For the first stop in an afternoon crawl of coffee and dessert, we walked over to Bob’s Café which now boasts a deli of Spanish products no avid cook should miss. As we swooned over ube tres leches, more pavlova and a coffee crunch cake, it dawned on me how a sugar plantation culture produced a lifestyle of languid days spent in the kitchen, slow cooking braises and painstakingly stirring pots of yema and dulce de leche. There is a grandmotherly type of love and care you can taste in every spoonful of haleya, in every sip of hot chocolate.
Bacolod is for many the country’s sweet capital, and the dessert crawl that followed centered on the superlative dessert cafes and coffee shops at The Upper East. This Megaworld township is even full of delightful surprises that don’t center on dessert. Don’t miss the first-ever 7-Eleven + Cafe Reserve at One Regis, a treasure trove of beauty products you don’t see in other beauty and wellness stores. Philstar Property editor Pam Imperial and I serendipitously walked into their in-house Masskara competition, their employees fashioning masks out of 7-Eleven recyclables!
The dessert crawl at Upper East began in earnest with a visit to Sucre, the domain of Liz Primacio and her charming mother Corazon. Go for the tangy batwan shake, the unique take on sacher torte and any cookie available. Then it was onto 74 Cafe, the caffe latte-colored coffee shop of Cris Afable who serves up a smooth robusta from Kanlaon coffee beans. Next was Pick Up Coffee whose pistachio chocolate bestseller, made with or without coffee, is sheer delight. Next door, we enjoyed the most superlative bibingka and hot chocolate at Merienda at Pan de Manila. This is worth taking back to Manila!
The day’s highlight was the much anticipated Electric Masskara Parade featuring brilliantly lit-up floats and dancers, lively music, and a sprinkling of celebrities. Forty-nine thousand happy Bacolodians lined the streets for this spectacle that was truly amazing, hats off to Mayor Greg, who personally made sure the floats were perfect before they set off! And the celebration was capped off with that truly festive of meals, chicken inasal at Chicken House, a lipsmacking meal you just have to enjoy with your hands.
Saturday brought plenty of rain but also other terrific meals which included lunch at Quan. We had the incomparable KBL (kadios, baboy and langka), ropa viejo (“old clothes”) which turned out to be crisp beef flakes on top of garlic rice, the clean-tasting vegetable soup laswa and pangat, akin to laing but richer. For dessert, we headed to the historical El Ideal, located in nearby Silay, for guapple pie and cassava cake. But we could not resist a bowl of homey batchoy even if we had just had lunch!
Only a few hours later, we drove to dinner at Lanai for a meal whose highlights were fresh salads with burrata, kaffir lime pesto, and cauliflower pita pockets. I would come back just for this last one because its flavors were so pleasantly unusual. You must have the salted muscovado ice cream, for dessert. Twenty minutes later, we were at yet another dessert haven, Felicia’s, right beside Citadines. The ube ice cream cake and dulce tres leches layered chocolate were winners.
But the night wasn’t over. Harold took our group to the rooftop of the Stonehill Residences where we could watch the fireworks, dance, and celebrate friendships both new and old. We had survived another full day of eating, no small feat in this amazing city!
On our final day, the sun returned and our itinerary included Stephen’s Balai Puti in Silay, another setting for history and yummy food, and a return to the mountain café Duyan. It was wonderful to be able to end this trip gazing at mountains even as images of Masskara still danced in our heads. We reluctantly bid Bacolod adieu, lugging back plenty of takeaways and memories, refreshed, and inspired for life ahead. We so look forward to visiting Bacolod again and again, especially in 2026 when new attractions unfold in this city that never ceases to smile.
