Iloilo and the art of Hi-Lo Eating

Fashionistas have just started trumpeting Hi-Lo dressing of late. That’s the magic of combining high-end designer treasures such as Gucci jackets and Prada bags with high-street finds such as H&M tees and Uniqlo trousers. There has been, however, a long-standing culinary tradition of juxtaposing the upmarket with street food and Iloilo City has mastered that very particular art of Hi-Lo Eating.

To be sure, there are exemplars of the high life and the low tech all over Iloilo, as there are in any Philippine city; it’s just that Iloilo seems to do it with a bit more panache. Thus, one can embark on a moonlit tour of millionaires’ mansions (the Don Emiliano Lizares monolith featuring 59 rooms behind Versailles-style gates is the high point) or follow the famous esplanade snake through mangroves. There are pastel-colored art-deco resto-palaces but also holes-in-the-wall (Roberto’s on J.M. Basa St, Iloilo City Proper) that re-create childhood memories of convent-school meriendas of siopaos. Here is a shortlist that combines the sublime at both ends of the spectrum.

Plaza de Molo
Outside Sta. Ana (St. Anne’s) Church

Plaza de Molo sits outside the magnificent Sta. Ana Church, renowned for the reassuring double row of 16 female saints, the place for women to pray for all their secret special intentions—even if you aren’t Blake Lively vanquishing sleazy movie producers.

Under a starry-night sky, women toil before a row of wood-burning ovens, the kind you would have to pay top peso for in BGC, producing freshly baked bibingka for just P5 each, beside stalls hawking hardboiled eggs and pink popcorn.

Balay Remedios
183 Bonifacio Drive, Iloilo City Proper

An art-deco masterpiece owned by the Iloilo grandees, the Villanuevas is the place to go for luxe dining. The centerpiece of its menu is the nostalgic favorite called “KBL” for “Kadios, Baboy, Langka.”

Ilonggo cuisine is brimming with exotic ingredients only to be found on Negros island, and “kadios” or “pigeon peas” is one of them. This wild berry adds an indefinable quality to this soup made of fork-tender pork hock and unripe jackfruit.

Also on the menu is an authentic Paella and “Ensalada Russa,” beloved of families north and south, which can be traced to Auguste Escoffier’s Parisian recipes at the turn-of-the-century.

The meal was topped off by an exquisite Tablea Chocolate Mousse, embellished with artery-destroying double-servings of vanilla ice cream and whipped cream.

Panaderia de Molo
Avanceña Street, Molo, Iloilo City

Not everybody may have the privilege to sup on the famous “Pancit Molo” dumpling soup on the premises of the oldest bakeshop in Iloilo—but there’s hope. The ancient Panaderia now offers blast-frozen packets of the dish that can withstand up to 24 hours’ unrefrigerated travel. It also comes with an easy-to-follow guide on how to make your own chicken broth to simmer it in.

Pancit Molo is best eaten with sticks of the local biscotti called “kinihad” or the city’s excellent puto wrapped artistically in fresh banana leaves.

There are dozens of other scrumptious cookies to be had on the premises or to take home—my favorites being the “Principe” short, bread-like biscuits, Goat’s Milk Barquillos (wafer-thin roll-ups of cow’s milk also available but not as fine) and “Barquiron,” barquillos filled with “polvoron” or sugared milk powder.

A fine Pancit Molo is also served at Camiña Balay nga Bato, Osmeña Street, Arevalo, Iloilo City; while more biscuits can be sampled at Mama’s Kitchen and Sinamay House, Osmena St., Arevalo, Iloilo City.

Alicia’s Batchoy
Washington Street, Jaro, Iloilo City

The Granary
Richmonde Hotel, Megaworld Boulevard
Iloilo Business Park, Mandurriao, Iloilo City

Denizens of La Paz are desperately territorial about Batchoy. A recent tempest in a teacup whirled around the re-invention of this dish at Hapag, one of Makati’s chic restaurants, which dared to conjure it as a Japanese soba. I’m not so sure if eating Batchoy in Jaro—or Mandurriao for that matter—and not at its original digs in the “Deco” restaurant will cause a culinary tar-and-feathering.

Both “Batchoys” were, to say the least, fantastic: The Granary having the interior-design edge of black marble and Milanese steel of the posh Richmonde Hotel, if that kind of surroundings is important to you; Alicia’s, on the other hand, drew the most enthusiastic reviews from foodies who declared that it “was everything one dreams Batchoy to be.”

The secret to the perfect Batchoy is supposedly a dollop of “guinamos” or shrimp paste that adds the umami flavor that is hard to replicate.

There are several variations to be had—the second tier being “special” (with egg) version and the most decadent of them all, the “super special” with extra helpings of noodles, caldo and chicharon.

(‘The Granary’ also had a wonderful “Laswa” or Ilonggo vegetable soup served with fresh-water shrimp.)

Breakthrough
Sto. Niño Sur, Villa, Iloilo City

The most luxurious experience in this weekend food crawl has got to be at Breakthrough, which is the curious but mouth-watering result of high-end cooking married to diligent scientific research. Top of the menu is a fish called managat, a species of mangrove sea bass developed by Breakthrough’s proprietor, a former head honcho of the Bureau of Fisheries. The result is an otherworldly, delectable fish, more fatty than the bangus and as delicious as sturgeon caviar.

Breakthrough also offers live lobsters and crabs grilled to perfection that can add up to P3,000 to P5,000 per head tab. If you don’t over-order most of the menu (which includes sizzling scallops, aligue (crab fat) rice, Ilonggo pinangat, and bowls of lato (seaweed) served raw with a brine-y dipping sauce), you can still feast like a hacendero for way less.