After a day of roaming around Iloilo, K and I decided to go to SM City Iloilo to buy some things from the supermarket and to eat dinner as well. While looking for the supermarket, people were flocking around the activity area, and when I saw people taking pictures of plated food, I immediately went to take pictures, too. :)
From what I learned about the people starting to clean up, SM Iloilo is hosting the 2010 Culinary Festival. It's a week long festival featuring different chefs from the country. It started 22 November, the day we went there, and it featured foods from the SM Master Chef Interschool Cooking Competition Elimination Rounds.
We weren't able to watch the event, they were actually wrapping up when we got there, so I will just share the plated food I took pictures of.
Lumpiang Buko at Atsarang Buko. I took a picture of the lumpia side, but it was blurred. Good thing the picture the atsarang buko's picture was okay enough to post.
Inihaw na Relyenong Buko sa Bukoong. This got me really interested... relyenong buko - I assume that's the big chunk of meat there, but how they made it relyeno, I don't know. If you're asking what's bukoong... we're on the same page. I don't know what it is as well. :)
Ginataang Tilapia na May Buko at Adobong Sarsa. I love how they plated this dish, and I am very impressed at what they did with the tilapia fillet. I love the look of that tilapia skin!
Lumpiang Niyog at Hipon na may Manggang Hilaw, Guinamos at Sinamakan. Not a pretty picture, but of 3 pictures I took of this dish, this was the best already. Lumpiang buko at hipon? Hmmm... maybe it tasted like lumpiang ubod.
For the desserts...
Minatamis na Kalabasa, Ube't Macapuno na may Bandi. Very interesting, but personally, I don't find it appealing. Mashed kalabasa may be delicious (I like to mash my kalabasa actually), but it certainly didn't look good on a plate.
Hinubarang Turon na Mangga at Buko. People weren't allowed to touch the foods, they were there for exhibition purposes, but this dish really made me interested enough to actually want to try it as well. Since the only people left in the area were the people cleaning up the set up, I didn't know if these were ordinary lumpia wrappers fried to crisp and stacked like a crepe.
There was another elimination round on the next day, but K and I weren't able to watch it. The 2010 Culinary Festival featured chefs Janice Lazaga, China Cojuanco, and Rosebud Benitez. Ending the festival was a cook off between celebrity chefs Ryan Eigenmann and Iloilo's own, Rafael Jardeleza III. Now... I am not sure if Chef Ryan Eigenmann is the actor (son of Michael de Mesa and Gina Alajar), but if he's the same person then it was a surprise to know he's a chef as well.
I was happy that even if we weren't able to watch any of the events during the week long celebration (we left afternoon of 24 Nov), I was still able to be part of it. K and I were truly at the right place at the right time.
...and, even if I was using my cell phone, I was able to take images of the foods okay enough. Oh, thank heavens! :)
*** Jenn ***
I come from a family who loves cooking and eating. I never had any formal training in cooking and that I taught myself how to cook based on the handed down recipes, but I could say that I can cook good food. In 2008, I started documenting my food trips for my