Vigan City, Ilocos Sur
30 October 2010
It was the day Ria and I traveled to Vigan City from La Union, but before going to Vigan, we made a quick stopover at Sta. Maria Church (also in Ilocos Sur). It was already near noon time when we arrived, and since most establishments were closed during noon time, we decided to eat lunch first. Brother was suggesting we check out the carinderia near Plaza Salcedo, but because Luna's post about her lunch at Cafe Uno was lingering my mind at that time, I told the tricycle driver to take us to Grandpa's Inn.
I don't know the exact address of the inn, but it wasn't too far from the heart of the city, though you still need to take the tricycle to get there.
Entering the inn, we were both amazed at how rustic it looked, to the point that we were immediately considering the thought of staying overnight in here so we would have longer time to roam around. Unfortunately, our budget wouldn't be enough and that my mom and brother will be traveling to La Union tomorrow morning so I needed to be home tomorrow as well.
Anyway, there were different dining areas, but we settled for the Cafe Uno side, because the bigger dining area only had one table available and that table was directly in front of the door, which was a bit awkward to be at considering people would get to see us first.
We were given two sets of menus, one for Cafe Uno and one for Kusina Felecitas, but Cafe Uno's menu was more for snacks, so we decided to choose dishes from Kusina Felecitas.
Pakbet with Bagnet. This dish had everything we wanted - veggies for health, it was an authentic Ilocano dish, and it had bagnet, something we both wanted to try. We thought it would be best to have this rather than buy bagnet (solo). I let Ria eat all the slices of Okra, but because the dish was wonderfully cooked, I ate a lot of the eggplant slices (something I don't normally do - I don't really prefer boiled eggplant, but I do eat fried or grilled eggplant). The bagnet was sinfully good, and the pakbet's sauce was superb.
Igado. This wasn't our first choice, but when the waiter approached us to say that our first choice - Grilled Pork with Blood Sauce (I forgot the exact name of the dish) - wasn't available, we checked the menu's pages over and over to find another authentic Ilocano dish. When she asked me about Igado, I quickly told her it had internals, and since she was okay with it, we went for it.
It was different from the usual Igado dishes I have tasted because it had no extenders (some add potatoes and carrots, others add raisins and/or green peas). As for the internals, it had liver, kidneys, pancreas, and heart, making it very rich in cholesterol. Again, another delicious dish from them, something I would like to eat again given the chance.
Fruit Shakes. To breakaway from Iced Tea, we had fruit shakes as our drinks. I went for my ever favorite watermelon shake, while Ria went for rambutan shake. I am not sure if they used fresh or canned rambutan for this drink, but it sure tasted like freshly opened rambutan fruit.
During this vacation, Ria and I would pay for the food we personally ordered (but we share food to each other), but for this food trip, we split the bill in half since we ate a lot of the viands we had.
I have been to Vigan countless of times, but apart from the carinderia-style lunch sibs and I had the very first time we went there in 2006, the dinner at Cafe Leona with K in 2008 as well as the Empanada/Okoy food trips, dining in Vigan has always been at Jollibee. It was a nice change to eat at somewhere new, and this discovery would really make me go back there in the future.
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