The Ortigas Town Center

It’s on Ortigas Avenue, a two-building complex on an elevated level, with ample parking space in front and in between the buildings. It’s divided into three sectors–the Wet Market and Paluto, the Tiangge or Bargain Center and Home Depot. It’s the Ortigas Town Center, an answer to the different needs of the community who are far away from the original town center in the South.

We first explored the wet market on the right side of the complex, which is open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. At mid-afternoon, the seafood still looked fresh, but the prices are not very competitive–apahap is between P320 and P350 a kilo, squid from P180 to P200, lapu-lapu at P350, California soft crabs at P280, bangus at P140, tilapia for P120 and lobster from P700 to P800 a kilo. The last one we leave for the more moneyed folks. The fruits include lanzones at P100 a kilo, mangosteen at P180 and mangoes at P80, still more expensive by at least P10 from where we regularly get our supply.

We presume this place comes to life during meal times, specially at night when it would be pleasant to dine al fresco with selected seafood (from the market) cooked to one’s preference by the string of restaurants offering "paluto" facilities. Among them is D’yan Lang restaurant, where cooking charges start at a little over P100.

We went on to the Bargain Center area, still to be filled with concessionaires. But if one is looking for bottled sauces and other delicacies, there’s the K Sarap line of goodies managed by KC Medina Enterprise. It sells prepared Caesar Salad, Sesame Seed and Mango, Honey Dayap, Passion Fruit and Cinnamon dressing–the latter three are the company’s newest innovative products–from P120 to P180 a bottle of 330 gms. The Food Court in the building is hardly inhabited but is offering a Pasta Gallery, shawarma, and sandwiches. There’s also a Nescafe dispenser.

At Home Depot, we had a good time browsing and found some rather interesting and considerably reasonably priced items, such as pots and pans, kitchen utensils and small appliances.

Having enough time to watch TV programs lately, we again caught an Oprah show and wondered if, as in the US, the Philippines could put up a Consumer Report group, which monitors, seriously, all products from popcorn to appliances with the aim of informing the public and protecting them. The report is published after thorough research and even taste testing have been done by a group of competent and qualified people. They also list products that are more beneficial to the consumer, such as which detergents are user-friendly.

There ought to be a law against establishments who share their data base with other organizations. We know mailing lists can be bought, but there must be some safeguard. We recently got a call from a tele-marketing group (the person could hardly speak grammatical English) of a reputable European bank, offering us a loan. When we called the head office (Consumer Service) a lady called Horiel could not even confirm if indeed the promo offered is legitimate. Name of bank will be supplied upon request.

Finally the municipal administration of our town (Biñan, Laguna) took to heart the erstwhile pathetic state of the public market and upgraded it. Gone are the vendors who had their wares on the street. Instead they have been organized in a two-wing structure that is considerably clean. Buyers no longer have to wade their way to the meat and fish section. An improvement, indeed. For P520 we filled our basket with half a kilo of dalag (one medium size) for P70, half a kilo of small sapsap at P40, a kilo of talakitok for P180, a kilo of tilapia for P70, two kilos of sardine bangus (meaning the small ones) for P140. Prawns were selling at P400 while the biya was at a prohibitive price of P200 a kilo.

Other than puto, we have been missing a lot of Biñan kakanin, and therefore we nearly went wild as we moved to the other building where the vegetables and fruit stalls are. Carrots sell for P60 a kilo, Baguio beans at P40. And yes, the kakanins–the rare mache (with mongo filling) at P12 a bag of 4, bibingkang galapong (rice flour cake) at P10 a piece, suman sa ibos for P10 a bunch of five. If we were not worried about over-indulgence, we could have bought a lot more, like the bibingkang malagkit, the espasol and the kuchinta.

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