Viva, Ilocandia! Part 2: Mangantayon!

Let's eat!

When you arrive in Laoag City, take with you your appetite. This is where the carnivores and the vegetarians have equal food options and harmoniously dine without compromise. 

Don't miss out on these Ilocano culinary destinations:

SARAMSAM YLOCANO RESTAURANT & BAR along J.P. Rizal St.

Saramsam is dressed in native Ilocano with age-old furniture of batibot chairs, jars and bottles that play contrast in select western fixtures. This is just a foretaste of what they specialize - a fusion of traditional and western cuisine.

Checklist:

Lauya a Baka is the counterpart of Bulalo (braised beef) yet the Ilocanos prefer it with more ginger. This caldo (soup) has a tinge of sourness that however does not equal to Sinigang.

Pinakbet with Chicharon - Blanched veggies (eggplant, ampalaya, okra, sili, tomatoes) with a small amount of bagoong. The pinakbet we are familiar with uses tomato sauce or shrimp paste, unlike the Ilocos version that uses fish sauce.

Higado a.k.a. pork menudo – sliced pork and pork liver mixed with achuete for coloring, red and green bell peppers.

Poqui-poqui – mashed eggplant sautéed with garlic, tomatoes, red onions and spring onions. This is Ilocos' eggplant omelet. Other option: They pioneer in serving Poqui-poqui Pizza with mozzarella cheese best drizzled with chili oil.

Bagnet with KBL - deep fried pork liempo (akin to lechon kawali) with kamatis, bagoong (fish sauce) and lasona (spring onions) sauce. Pork slices are boiled, then air-dried, deep-fried, cooked in an oven and re-fried until golden crispy.

Laoag Longaniza Pizza - uses the owner's recipe for homemade pork sausage with a special sauce and mozzarella cheese. This is definitely a meal on its own.

Marunggay (malunggay) Sherbet is best drizzled with calamansi. This sinam-it (dessert) is for everybody's fancy.

La Preciosa Fine Dining  along J.P. Rizal St.

Cozy and homey, La Preciosa, formerly Peppermint Restaurant, is the only fine dining restaurant in the north that specializes in home-cooked traditional Ilocano comfort food. These are the homegrown recipes of the late Preciosa Ablan Ventura Palma, thus the name, who passed on the ladle to her daughter Pamela Palma Aragoza who now gets her hands full with their catering venture.

Checklist:

Gamet is the local seaweed which is known to Japanese cuisine as nori. For this Ilocano ensalada (salad), they bathed this dark, dry seaweed in hot water, added chopped tomatoes and spring onions (lasona), and seasoned to taste.

Buridibud is a vegetable soup with alucon, squash flower, malunggay, eggplant, lima beans, sweet potato and tomato.

Bagbet (Pinakbet and Bagnet) – this variation is surprisingly tasty that I enjoyed it better than the bagnet itself.

Ipon Paksiw is simply inun-unan nga dulong (tiny while saltwater fishes). This kind of fish is in season in December.

Insarabasab is a beer match of thinly sliced grilled pork belly and pork liver seasoned with onions and ginger mixed with special vinaigrette.

Higado (Spanish for liver) is pork menudo with liver, without the achuete.

Crispy Dinardaraan (Dinuguan) is a personal favorite. In La Preciosa, they cook the pork blood separately, season it with spices then incorporate it with their crispy entrails. The proprietress suggests that it's best eaten when hot.

I recommend the following homemade cakes to cap a meal: Oreo Cheesecake, Sans Rival, Tiramisu and Carrot Cake.