hotel salcedo de vigan (where to stay in this museum city)

we spent the holidays on a road trip to the north. the farthest we planned to go was vigan, ilocos sur. we figured we had to book a hotel ahead of time – what with the christmas rush and all. and so our choices were limited to hotels with a good working website through which we could reserve. we ended up choosing hotel salcedo de vigan

the hotel was right in the center of the heritage village. we opted not to take the calesa or any tour and just walked around town. we liked the location of hotel salcedo because while it was near everything, it wasn’t near the plaza which might have been a bit too noisy.

the staff were eager to help. they were not necessarily top trained hotel personnel (little things would show like they’d be a bit slow to react to things) but they did their jobs in good cheer.

the rooms were comfortable. clean and well-appointed. we didn’t get to try the breakfast (we skipped our free one and opted to gorge on ilocos empanada instead. more about that in a succeeding post) but we can’t see how it could be bad – the rest of the food at the hotel was fine (again, part of another post).

all in all though, what charmed us the most was the fact that this was a renovated old house that still maintained a lot of the look and feel of the original structure. the steps opened into a wide receiving area where one could actually sit and look out the windows and imagine, rather easily, what the town must have looked like in the olden days

ziggurat. a delicious find at the corner of tigris and euphrates

it isn’t the easiest thing, finding ziggurat. but follow these instructions: from makati avenue, turn into burgos. on your left you’ll see a bar called bottoms, turn left on the street after – that should be durban street. don’t go too fast, on your left you’ll see a narrow street, turn into it. on the next corner of that street you’ll find ziggurat. it is, literally, at the corner of tigris and euphrates (streets). the entrance to the restaurant isn’t too big, so keep an eye out for it

once inside, the ambience strongly signals what’s in store

the theme of the restaurant is the cuisine of the islamic world. and instantly, we love the idea. it is what we think is best about food – learning about cultures and peoples through their cuisine. we try a number of dishes (we went twice in a row), but – at least for now – the ones that stood out were

the mango curry

this is a dish that made me realize how tiny my existing culinary world really is. a curry with mango subbing for the protein/vegetable? how would that taste? well, it was extraordinarily good. a perfect balance between the spice of the curry and the sweet of the mango – pulling off a delicate balancing act to make sure that in the end this was still a savory dish.

we had this with the injera bread

native to ethiopia, it’s a nicely spongy bread. not brimming with flavor, but just what you want to sop off all that curry in the bowl.

we washed down our food with chili beer and honey beer. fantastic stuff. the beer alone is worth going back for.

and the desserts. kulfi

and the gulab

i’ll say this. i never liked indian desserts. until now. i’m convinced that – at least in the philippines – only ziggurat can do these two dishes in a way that are actually yummy.

these dishes are just the tip of the iceberg. the menu of ziggurat is daunting at first with a food list covering an area as big as a newspaper spread. the first time we were there, the whole experience blew our minds. the boldness of the flavors, the headiness of the spices.

we knew this was a place we had to keep coming back to. we spent about P1,000 each for an appetizer, a main course each, and dessert. though this isn’t particularly expensive given the richness of the culinary experience, it’s still not something we can afford to do regularly.

but we will be back, many many times. each time we will try something different. and each dish, we know, will expand our lives.

 

siopao at mami – the last beijing post

at the corner of our hutong street, on the way to the bus station, we noticed a hole-in-the-wall place that had familiar steamers. dimsum! and it looked like a rather popular place too. the thing was, nobody in there spoke english and the menu had no english translation either. so we just pointed to an order that was coming out and asked for two of those.

it was a noodle soup with tomatoes and scrambled egg.

the noodles were roughly cut, more like torn strips from a sheet of dough – but we liked it because it made the whole thing more toothsome. the soup was not bad, but a little on the bland side. that’s because one has to season with black vinegar and this

with the condiments in, the soup became quite divine. at the door, we asked how much our bill was. the proprietor wrote down 12RMB. P72. for two huge bowls! neither of us managed to finish ours. this place was a true find.

while we were there, we noticed people taking out large amounts of something from the steamers. and so on our next trip, that’s what we ordered.

they were little siopaos

each about 2 or 3 bites and filled with a very tasty meatball. again, we were floored at how cheap it was. 5RMB or P35 for an order containing 10 pieces. no wonder the people were buying as many as 10 orders at a time.

we’ll actually never know what’s in those buns, but it really doesn’t matter – they were that good.