Western Visayas Food Trip: A Visit to La Paz Public Market and Camina Balay Nga Bato in Iloilo
First stop on my Western Visayas food tour had to be La Paz Public Market, home to Deco’s, Ted’s and my declared favourite, Netong’s - all excellent makers of the real deal La Paz Batchoy. Kaon ta!
I’ve barely slept for over 24 hours but this was good to the last drop!
I was beyond excited to have my friend, Anton, pick me up at the airport and take me around town. This guy and I go way back - we basically lived along the same main street and went to the same kindergarten, grade school, high school and college together. Today he lives just outside Iloilo City and looks after the family business. Last year, he tells me, he started a grove of cacao trees, on a farm in his mom’s hometown.
“Anything you plant here just grows,” he said, as we drove around Jaro and Molo, townships known beyond the island of Panay for their delicious culinary specialties. I’d been craving sweet, crisp biscocho biscuits and snagged a box of the house favourites (aka the pasalubong box) at Jaro, Iloilo’s Original Biscocho Haus.
Our next stop was Camina Balay Nga Bato, an ancestral house I’d read about years ago and had been dying to visit. Time to wander around - and have a couple cups of hot chocolate.
This ancestral home has its original capiz shell windows, a hand-stamped tin ceiling, beautifully burnished walls made with local lumber and a cabinet of curiosities, which included unidentifiable fossils labelled as coming from nearby Islas des Gigantes.
There’s really nothing better than a demitasse of local tablea (ground, pressed cacao) whisked with a batirol - think of a large honey stirrer - in a metal jug to make incredibly rich hot chocolate. I had two of these - espeso (thick) - and remember all the reasons the source of this “tsokolate-ah” is permanently inked on my arm.