SHOOTING CHURCHES, EATING NOODLES (2025 Semana Santa Edition)

The fishes wear colorful earings in Paoay while in Sta. Maria, the Virgin Mary keeps appearing in a guava tree on a hilltop.

That is why two massive earthquake baroque churches were built in both places so St. Augustine can preach to the sinner fishes of San Juan de Sahagun (1694-1710), and for the Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion to be able to keep guard of the guava tree in what was once known as Purok (1765-1810).     

And yes, we have the bragging rights of having visited the two UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Ilocos Norte and Sur, and the other two in Miag-ao and Intratmuros too!

On the first three days of a Holy Week, the demolition men descended upon Bakal 2 to pull out rusty nails from an old wooden roof truss where the minutes of the meetings with Islamabad and Jakarta along with the survey responses to Melbourne were crucified as captions to a couple of quickie rides and a birthday invitation in Bakal 2.

On Maundy Thursday, we crossed the Dalton and Diadi moutain passes to shoot St. Vincent Ferrer's church in Dupax del Sur and the church of St. Matthias in Tumauini, and eat Cabagan's famous pansit and an accidental pansit batil patong in Tuguegarao that would have been perfect pairings with Aritao's sauteed red ant eggs. 

In between betrayal and crucificion, bikers converge in Dupax del Sur while most of the resturants in Tuguegararo closed to attend an Ilocano mass at St. Peter's Cathderal.  

On Good Friday, we detoured to the Basilica of Our Lady of Piat for a forbidden breakfast of pork igado with more bikers before launching a raid to St. Raymond of Penafort's church in Malaueg (aka Rizal).

We crossed the mountains of Apayao from Conner as death blanketed Golgotha, parked at the Patapat Viaduct in Pagudpud, and dueled with the windmills of Bangui before a pit stop in Paoay for a linner of insarabasab, pinakbet, and sinigang na bagnet to finally usher us to a welcome bowl of reheated miki Iloco in Vigan.

On Black Saturday, we fell in line for a breakfast of sinanglao before exploring Vigan and Calle Crosologo by foot and calesa on the way to St. Catherine of Alexandria's church in Luna.

That's how we avoided the mourning traffic at Sta. Maria and had a late lunch of inihaw na tuna, sinigang na seafood, adobong pusit, sinuglaw, and dinengdeng by the seaside in San Fernando. 

On Easter Sunday, I took a center seat for an early morning ride to PR 736 and an omelet dinner in Bangkok as memories of the extremely helpful diversion roads in Isabela and Ilocos Norte, the literal street dogs of Cagayan, the lonely winding highway of Apayao, a sexy tattoed lady walking her dog in Ilocos Sur, Bulan's pout for not being able to drive in La Union, and the choir singing during the renovation of Vigan's St. Paul Cathedral slowly faded into a resurrection of empanada, royal bibingka, bagnet, and longganisa...

THE PANSITING

All the world's a pansit.

Birthdays and funerals, weddings and baptismals, fiestas and reunions, anniversaries, breakfast, lunch, dinner, merienda and lockdown food packs.

Mula Mavulis hanggang Saluag. 

Pansit, the original Pinoy fast food, has come a long way from the "pian e sit" sold by the panciteros and panciterias of old.

And I was the Pansit Man on sabbatical, shooting churches and eating noodles who in the time of the quarantine was called on to cook sotanghon with pork meat balls on Sunday, prep up for the wife's pancit canton on Monday, experiment on pasta with ragu on Tuesday, dare for a miki Abra on Wednesday, finally landed bihon guisado on Thursday, reinvent La Paz batchoy on Friday and ride for pansit-kanin on Saturday.

All for breakfast and to honor the last week of the 103rd Giro d'Italia and the first week of the 75th La Vuelta a Espana.

Tao Geoghengan Hart ITT-ied to pink at the last stage of the Giro so I asked Enola Holmes in England if Tao is indeed the next generation of British cycling.

"Shut the fuck up!" retorted Manuel and Driss who firmly believe that Wout van Aert will rule not just Belgium but the world.

They will be close enemies, the Ineos Grenadier versus a yellow bird from Jumbo-Visma, intense but mute like Siva and Regatta's dark drama because football is preferred over cycling in the slums of Singapore and Egypt, an enigma as tragic as the treasure and forbidden love stories of Hatshepsut and Senenmut during the 18th Dynasty, Ali and Zainab in the Ottoman period, and General Bishr and Naemat before the Revolution of 1952.

Ramkant played cricket in the hills of Jitvapur and dreamed of Umrika in Mumbai where he was smuggled in a cargo ship but ended up in Taichung, toiling with A-Ho under a sun in the sprawling grounds of the world's largest bike manufacturer whose Giant Revel will bring uncertain glory to the future of Spanish cycling: Max Soler who is a progeny of Luis through Trini, and Enric Mas who was descended from Soleras through the Carlana. 

I am the Phantom Biker and these are my stories in the time of Covid-19.

THE PANSIT RESURGENCE

More than 11 years ago from today, I started blogging about the colonial churches of the Philippines and campaigning for the pansit to be proclaimed as the Filipino national dish.

Hundreds of photographs and 656 blog posts later, the pansit has somewhat faded away.

Maybe because I just had too much of it, or perhaps there were more interesting dishes to shoot and write about from the countries I've visited around the world in the last 11 years.

It took a spur-of-the-moment lunch at a Kapampangan buffet restaurant to remind me that I was the Pansit Guy of blogsphere, and that there's a lot of pansit dishes still to be discovered out there.

And it took me the pansit puti, sauteed bihon noodles wafting with ground black peppers that was supposed to have originated from the LSS Fastfood in Makati, to realize that I was a pansit connoisseur second, my MVI persona being the first.      

So hail to the pansit sang the band as bilaos of its various interpretations were brought to the 2017 Bowling Games, to be consumed by the drunk and happy crowd, to be balo-ted by the Atengs, or simply to rot in the heat of a fierce August sun.

Shooting churches and eating noodles might have segued into The Bicycle Diaries and a travel and food blog of sorts, but I always tell the sheep, cows, carabaos and dogs that I meet in the bike trail that it all started with pansit and two old churches in Obando and Bambang...  

MY PANSIT WEEK

Monday is flat noodle breakfast with pork sausage, a bowl of Thai rice porridge and a half day of going back to adaptive management for effective influencing and catching up on Rodrigo Barahona's measurement of digital influencing. 

The night was still restless as Tuesday dawned and jerky bacon got inducted into a plate of Chinese stir-fried noodles so I decided to stick my morning fare with latte and apple juice, and my dinner in the street corner deli with a big green bottle of Chang after a day of more adaptive management.  

Wednesday is just plain "Wow!" as the Japanese invaded and layered my lunch buffet plate with a dollop of cold soba, strips of pink salmon sushi and red tuna sashimi, and sublime slices of duck breast while the people in the Autumn Room segued from capturing the sentiment in media monitoring to chasing tactics effectiveness monitoring and untangling the convoluted lines and circles of social network analysis.   

I moved from the comforts of Room 5074 to the shared space of Room 5071 on Thursday when the meat balls were dumped on a bed of rice noodles, the wrestling match between direct, indirect and future beneficiaries tumbling from the Chatrium into a duel between plain grilled pork neck or papaya salad with pork neck, both served ablaze with masticated bird's eye chilli.

That was the case until Friday mercifully came, as bored and tired as the oglio e olio that was as mercifully salvaged by a side of shrimp and duck salad and the bowl of vanilla ice cream that always top my every lunch at Albricias, plus the fact that it's all over and I'm finally flying back to Manila.  

And I say all of that fancy pansit from palatial Chatrium's cavernous buffet hall can never eclipse the pansit palabok Komrad Bong served during his despedida on a Saturday afternoon in Bacal 1, the star amidst a culinary nobility of warek-warek, crisp fried crablets and mountain stream goby, frozen tuna sashimi lathered in lethal wasabi, the usual dynamite and shanghai, and goat head boiled to gelatinous softness it was almost heaven.  

That I tried to burn with Balong on a Sunday morning that unfortunately concluded with a ton of lechon, goat caldereta, duck tinungkoy, chicken tinola, squid adobo, milkfish relleno, beer sub-zero, and that small plate of pansit guisado which every true blue pinoy must serve on their birthdays. 

SPORADIC PANSIT

'Yan ay pagkatapos makantiwayan ng pizza at mojos n'ung nakaraang araw sa PRRM, ang pulutang sisig sa Baluarte bago dumating si AK, at habang binubuno ang misteryo ng PSF sa Maharlika at ang pangako nitong milyon-milyong pondo. 

Ang bihon guisado ng PSF ay dinugtungan ng sashimi at Johnny Walker Black, na hinugasan pa ng kinilaw na tuna at San Mig Lights sa Kanto Grill, binanlawan ng 27-kilometrong paggagalugad kinabukasan sa mga nakatagong kalsada ng Villa Nati, ikinula sa dinakdakan at pansit canton na inihain ni Kuya Blav sa Quezon, at isinampay sa walang kamatayang pansit ni Edgar na nagkabuholbuhol sa matining na second voice ni Kuya Ading na umalingawngaw sa Bacal 2.

Nagbunyi kinabukasan ang mga demonyo dahil kinailangang bumiyahe ng maaga na wala man lang naiwang "Happy Valentine's!" sa katabing unan, kaya marahil pinarusahan ako ng almusal na Mcdo spaghetti sa Quezon Avenue at ng pananghaliang Jollibee palabok sa airport, at sinalubong sa Davao ng mga kapwa nais makalimot na may Valentine's Day nga. 

ANG PAGBABALIK NG PANSIT

Sa totoo lang, nakakapagod ding kumain ng pansit, lalo na 'yung normal na pansit [bihon guisado, lomi, mami, canton] na nabibili kahit saan at wala namang taglay na pambihira at bago.

'Yung pansit canton na inihain ng Casa San Pablo, litson ang sahog at madaming gulay, kaya nausisa ang panlasa kahit hindi pa natutunaw ang almusal na Whooper Jr. Burger at chicken nuggets na pinatungan ng meriendang puto at palitaw.

Puede na din bagamat hindi ito maituturing na pambihira, katulad ba ng sintonadong kantahan sa videoke basta may malamig na beer at masarap na pulutan, o ng wala masayadong kuwentang ulam basta may masarap na sawsawan.

Nakakapangulila din ang lasa ng palabok basta't hindi galing ng Jollibee, kaya siguro naiwan at naibalik naman ang telepono ko ng mamalabok ako sa Tropical Hut, bagamat hindi ko na talaga mahanap ang lasa ng pansit luglug sa Santiago City na binudburan ng tinapa flakes.

Malabsang pansit ang kasama sa pananghalian ni Kuya Ading sa District Convention kaya siya marahil inantok at nakatulog.

Hindi sa pansit kundi marahil ay dahil sa hindi ako sumama sa libing ni Ate Leovy kaya ako umabot sa sa dead end at na-double float.

At walang pansitan sa Quezon pero may inilaang nilagang itlog at saging para sa 32.3 kilometrong karera.

Masarap ang adobong baboy at itlog maalat ni iginayak ni Kuya Chito pagkatapos ng karera kaya ako nakadalawang hirit, at kahawig n'ung muse 'yung serbidora sa lomihang nagsara na sa San Jose City. 

CHASING GUIMARAS

But before that and all the mangoes in the world is a sweet corner in La Paz where great coffee is brewed and served with pansit, plus that batchoyan where Chef Iking Legazpi learned his craft, and a sampling of what is said to be perhaps some of the greatest brazos de mercedes ever made.

Madge Cafe has lived to its hype although I found its non-coffee menu wanting, especially the anemic pansit, while Deco's should be proud of mentoring Mang Iking who, after sampling a Deco bowl that tasted a lot like Ted's, is definitely assured of having the tastiest batchoy, although I found nothing spectacular with the La Paz Bakeshop's uber-sweet version of the brazos that was consumed with great effort in the shadows of the Church of Nuestra Senora de la Paz y Buen Viaje.

And finally Guimaras and its welcoming giant fake mango that preluded our most expensive tricycle hire ever at P1,500 for a day, plain thievery at first but eventually justified as we chased the rolling roads to the colonial Church of San Isidro Labrador in Navalas, Buenavista where we stumbled into a preparation for a wedding and a fiesta, and more rolling rugged roads that took us to the elegant but hauntingly forlorn and empty Roca Encantada colonial beach house of Iloilo's richest name.

Then the long trip back to Jordan and its spread of a million fair and traded mangoes --- real and sweet at P70 for all you can eat, sliced and shaken and strawed with The Pitstop Restaurant's take on the mango pizza whose toppings will pass but its flaky crust a massive failure, and spiked into the adobo and refreshing tinola of one of the stalls although it was a basin of steamed mango-less oysters that blew the wife's gastronomic heart away.

More roads afterwards, bumpier and steeper, to the Spanish-era Guisi Lighthouse in Nueva Valencia or what remained of it and the ruins that has the potential of Talisay's Lacson Mansion and a decadent restaurant, then back to that bumpier and steeper road to Sitio Alubijod's white sand beach to satisfy our curiosity where we decided to cool our heels with halo-halo [for the three of us] and another mango shake [for Balong] since it is the hottest hour of the afternoon after all. 

We decided we've had enough of chasing Guimaras' roads in a tricycle so we skipped the rest of the day tour, had a brief pit stop at the Trappist Monastery to gawk at its pricey goods, passed by what was once was the world's smallest plaza, and into the wharf where we paid the tricycle driver and took the boat back to iloilo City.

The sad part is we were too tired to explore for dinner so we ended at Robinson's and made do with left-over KBL [kadyos, baboy, langka], reheated sisig, and nuked grilled bangus...