MARIKINA FOOD TRIP!

FOOD TRIP TO MARIKINA
(Mainly on J.P. Rizal St., Sta. Elena, near the Church)
This food trip was planned thanks mainly to the recent The Pinoy Foodie youtube videos (thanks for sharing the link, Brod Philip!) featuring restaurants and eateries in Marikina City, which has won an award for the cleanest and greenest city in Metro Manila. My Mom and I started out at about 11:00 am today, a fine, but typically hot and humid day. 
All the eateries/shops/carinderias shown below are located mainly on J. P. Rizal Street in the Sta. Elena area, one a few steps away from the others. Our final stop, the Cafe Kapitan, has its own full blog posting in this same blogsite.
We went straight to the Marikina market, as I had not been there in many years but had heard that it was very clean and well-organized now -- I had gone there a few times as a kid, and what I remember are the stench and the mud, mud, and more mud in the aisles, especially in the wet area where you bought meats and seafood. The mud's gone now, and the cement ground in the wet area was, well, wet, because they regularly washed it out, and what's great is that there was no foul smell at all. The general area was well-organized, but once you went back out on the street and walked to the other block, you'd find vegetable and fruit stalls cheek-by-jowl with meats and seafood stalls. Everything was clean overall though. We planned on going back at the end of our journey to buy some really nice-looking fruits and vegetables, because we didn't want to lug the things around during our walk.


First Stop -- Macky's (a Goto shop)

Macky's is a carinderia, a no-fuss eatery where the menu is on a board on the wall, and the prices are cheap. There are not too many choices on the menu, but then again, this is a Goto shop, although I was surprised to see a longer list of sandwiches than main dishes. I was hoping they would have Chicken Arroz Caldo, which I would have preferred. Oh well.

The place was unpretentious, but at least the tables and chairs were of heavy wood and not made of those awful plastic laminates and mono blocs, respectively. There was an oversupply of electric fans on the ceiling and on the floor, and dust swirling around and landing on your food came to mind (the door to the street was wide open). The place was clean, in general.





You go up front to place your order (while looking at the menu behind the guy) and pay, then you find a table. It was not yet noon, so the place was not yet full -- it filled up pretty quickly, though.

We ordered a small bowl of Goto each, the Tokwa't Baboy, Pancit Palabok (my usual favorite), and Guinatan Bilo-bilo.

A small bowl of Goto (a gruel of rice and pork meat and sometimes innards; Php 25)) would be the last thing you would want to eat on a hot humid day, especially in an eatery which is not air-conditioned, but I wanted to see whether the goto here was better than the one I make at home. The Goto was a little bit on the greasy side and could have used some skimming of the fat globs floating on the surface. The flavor was acceptable, and I didn't have to douse it with patis (fish sauce) or calamansi (local lime). The two pieces of meat were chewy and flavorless; there were three large bits of cooked blood (pig? chicken?), which I didn't dare eat. My Goto is definitely better.

I would not recommend the Pancit Palabok (Php 30) -- it's violently red from food coloring, and has no flavor at all, so the patis and calamansi were put to use, albeit in vain. I had two bites, and put my fork down. I can't even say that my Pancit Palabok is better, because I never make this labor-intensive dish at home, but there are many other places in Metro Manila where you can get delicious Pancit Palabok.

 The Tokwa't Baboy (Php 30) was good, if you like your vinegar dip sweet (my Mom loved it!). I never put sugar in the vinegar for my own version of this dish. The tokwa (tofu) was perfectly cooked, however, and those bits of lechon kawale (crispy skin-on pork), instead of boiled pig cheeks and ears, were more than welcome -- the pork skin was actually deliciously crunchy.

 Guinatan Bilo-bilo (Php 17) -- my heart jumped a little when I saw this on the menu. Yessss, I said to myself, I'm going to have that because it's been a while since my last guinatan fix. Ho-hum. The sauce was thin and bland (it should be thick with coconut milk and very flavorful) -- it needed a lot more coconut milk and a little bit more sugar. The chunks of saba (a cooking banana) and kamote (sweet potato) were perfectly cooked though. There were five small bits of bilo-bilo (yes, I counted). They should rename it Guinatan Kamote! (I suppose, at that price, you get what you pay for.)

Next Stop:  Cafe Via Angelo (just across the street)

 Having had a disappointing meal at Macky's, we were excited to see this new Cafe across the street, so we decided to lift our spirits up and have a nice decaf cappuccino and some nice pastries as dessert.

 The posters outside were colorful and promising . . . .

But, alas!!

The interior of the Cafe was really nice, with some upholstered sofas and a nice ambiance. It was also nicely air-conditioned, a welcome change from Macky's. So we sat down in a booth and looked at the menu. What a downer -- they only had brewed coffee, and they didn't serve decaf (both my Mom and I can't have decaf this late in the day). OK, I said, we'll just have bottled water and some pastries. Another downer -- they only had a couple of cakes and they didn't look appetizing at all. So we left.

Next Stop - Mama Ting's (a catering business)

Coming out of the Cafe, we were pleasantly surprised that the next stop on our list, Mama Ting's (mainly a caterer--their Relyenong Bangus is supposed to be very good), was right next to Macky's, across the street (we hadn't noticed it earlier)! So we wasted no time and trudged over.

 I was chastised by the owner for taking these photos without permission -- no photos allowed!!! Yikes. On the left are the huge woks (more like vats) where they cooked the fish filling (composed of the meat expertly removed from the fish, leaving the skin intact so they can stuff it), carrots, raisins, etc. The youtube video has a clip of the fish (all skin!) being stuffed.

On the left is the stuffed milk fish (Relyenong Bangus), packed tightly with the filling from the tail bone all the way up to where its gills used to be (doesn't it look preggers?!). It actually had a nice flavor. This is worth buying (at Php 210 for the largest) if you're having company and needs something fast but worth serving. This is such a labor-intensive dish to make, and it's not worth making just one or two.
The dish on the right is called Everlasting (need to research the name's provenance) -- it's a sort of a pork meatloaf, similar to another meatloaf dish, the Embutido, which comes in the shape of a log. Not bad.

On the left is the home-made Ubod Achara (pickled heart of palm), which I loved paired with the relyeno. The Ubod strips were soft and crisp at the same time, and the seasoning of the vinegar pickle was perfect. The Ube Halaya on the right (purple yam cake) was a bit ho-hum.

Next Stop - Rocha's Puto Kutsinta

This is a tiny hole-in-the-wall shop tucked away among other shops, but unlike those, Rocha's is nice, clean, colorful, and very well-organized. They sell a variety of sweets and snacks. The shop's two specialties are puto (a rice muffin) and kutsinta (a sticky rice cake made with lye). Always available is the puto (right photo) partially stuffed with cheese (Php 110) -- they were moist and delicious. They don't keep for more than a day, though, so make sure you have enough people to finish that box. You have to order one day ahead for the kutsinta, because they don't keep either. (FYI--I'm told that another nearby shop, Rowena's, makes better puto -- maybe I'll try that the next time.)

Last Stop - Cafe Kapitan (see separate blog on this blog site). (Check under 3b. Philippines - Restaurant Reviews.)

We were finished by 2:30pm, including the long stay at Cafe Kapitan to chat with the owner, so we covered a lot of ground in 3 1/2 hours. It was fun!