The absence of street vendors started to throw me off my game. In Jakarta you could not travel more than a hundred metres before literally tripping over one. The only street carts in Cebu for for snacks or drinks, nothing hearty. My first couple of days were spent in high(ish) end restaurants, Jollibee, or the fried banana lady. There had to be somewhere to get a Pinoy breakfast, something similar to what the local Philippine restaurant back home served? Or had the tourist sprawl forced them to move further afield? Peering out my 11th storey window each morning, I would conduct a capricious visual census. The third morning led to clues allowing me to crack the code – the carinderia. That time spent playing Sim City wasn’t wasted after all.
The carinderia offers a near endless array of local delicacies at insanely low prices. A mix of a school tuckshop and a corner store without the bingo arms. Deploying food and slaying hunger with bain marie technology, all items have been lovingly cooked and are awaiting your custom. Just point and it gets lumped on your plate. And much like the experience of buying a new car and then seeing a higher proportion of your new vehicle on the road, the Baader-Meinhof Phenonium kicked in and now they were forever in my eyeline.
My first introduction into carinderia life was a tray complete with noodles, a savoury mince like concoction, some stewed jackfruit (which I mistook as chicken) and a couple of spring rolls (lumpia) to balance up the tray. It was cheap, delicious and just the ticket to kickstart my day. I celebrated this joyous occasion with a melon iceblock and a Pepsi which was served in an old fashioned glass bottle that somehow makes it taste that little bit better. At less than $7AUD for this, it felt like I was knowingly taking part in a crime.
The following day I got a weird vegetable dish, a beef and pork rissole, some ube cakeish thing as well as something crumbed and deepfried. What it was exactly is unknown but I did survive to tell this tale. I asked for rice and a ball of it lobbed onto my plate. Moments later the lady slammed her fist into it and the rice flattened across the plate. Hopefully this was a custom or was she upset that I didn’t order more?Squashed or not it was sticky (I am assuming it was sticky prior to her pulverising it?) You may be asking why would I also order sticky black rice? No idea, it was just there I guess. Needless to say I didn’t need much for lunch that day.
With each visit to the carinderia I became increasingly adventurous. My last breakfast was going to gravitate to the weird and whacky. Pork skewers, two rissoles, green noodles (that turned out to be seaweed), some jackfruit (mistook it again for chicken) and a bowl of pigs blood which had been flavoured with herbs and cooked down. For dessert there were green sticky rice rolls and this was washed down with a bottle of Coke. The seaweed tasted like slightly undercooked vermicelli noodles and with most Filipino food had a fair glug of vinegar mixed into the equation. The pigs blood was surprising tasty, especially when mixed with some rice, but no matter what I write I am not going to convince the majority of you that are currently shaking your head.
Whacked on a thick layer of sunscreen and headed in the general direction of the local markets. These fresh food markets are a daily ritual for most locals and I was looking forward to coming eye to eye with the much touted stall that sells handmade hot chocolate drinks (sikwate). This magic happens by drying, roasting, and grinding cacao beans and all this for a handful of change. The lure of a couple of bakeries on the way there was an added bonus and meant I could indulge in regular snack breaks.
The bakeries were an eye opener with multiple items able to be purchased with loose change. Unusual flavour combinations (chocolate and cheese), ube infused into nearly all and sundry. The items in the picture that look dry were exactly that. Onto the market as I need to get a drink, stat.
The market specialised was predominantly dried seafood. I don’t know what was worse, the waft of the dried fish in the mid 30s heat, the cats roaming around and sitting on tables or the nearby waterway that was clogged with so much litter and debris that it took on an unnatural light pink colour with a matching dank smell. If that water was filtered and came through a tap you would still have to serve it on a plate with a knife and fork. I’ve seen more than my fair share of murky waterways in South East Asia but this one could be a character in the next Stephen King novel. To rub fish sauce into my wounds, the search for the chocolate stall lady was fruitless. My clothes and hair now smell as if the active ingredients in my skin care routine are shrimp paste and durian. I tried to fill the hot chocolate sized hole in my heart with a deep fried banana and this somehow worked even though they have different dimensions.
My last meal in Cebu was something from the hotel kitchen. I had ignored them for my nutritional needs but with it raining outside I decided to bunker down and order in. Kicking off with a tropical cocktail to match the downpour of the tropical storm. From memory it was a mai tai but some clarification from a mixologist would be appreciated? Seafood bicol express was the next thing to come out containing various assorted things from the seabed covered in a coconut sauce. Once again the seafood was small and a tad chewy. For dessert, their take on halo halo. The white beans from my previous incarnation had been replaced with kidney beans and pieces of dried banana. Not only did they clean out the hotel fridge with this version, they also emptied the pantry.
When it’s bucketing down outside and you have a full belly, it’s time to retreat to your quarters and check out what is telecast on Filipino TV. If straight-to-DVD movies from the first decade of the twenty-first century are your thing, Cebu is the place for you. And if not they have wall-to-wall sports for you, as long as you like badminton, volleyball and basketball. The basketball competition is sponsored by Manny Pacquiao the world champion boxer turned Filipino politician. Rated as one of the greatest fighters of all time by any measure he is a beacon of hope for the locals. The standard of basketball was mediocre, not that I would tell Manny that.
Cebu, you have been a fine host. Thanks for your bountiful food, your friendly locals and your racious tourists. Please fix up those markets and pass legislation to empower Jollibee to wipe McDonalds off the face of the planet. Also, make your banking system more compatible with Australia, $7AUD to withdraw $60AUD seems like somebody is bending somebody over a table. Surely an ATM could cough up more than a handful of notes?
Fortunately my shoes have yet to disintegrate, but if they do, this shop would be a decent starting place for a replacement pair. It stocks enough variety even for Imelda Marcos. Onto Manila for the last leg…
