Trip Ko Lang

empanada cooking, final product and how to eat it

Here’s another well-known food in Ilocos, their fried orange yummy empanada. This is made up of grated papaya, toge, longganisa, egg, and dough (orange color). These empanadas can be found in Batac and Vigan but we were just able to try the one in Batac. It was delicious and really heavy. Find it hard to finish one and you can also eat it with ketchup and vinegar. Yumyum.

poque-poque, pinakbet pizza, ilocandia pizza, inabraw, ilocandia pasta, crispy dinuguan, bagnet, herencia cafe, paoay

For our Saturday dinner in Paoay, we decided to dine in Herencia Cafe, a fine-dining resto  just near the famous Paoay church. The place was cozy and it has an old Filipino house ambiance. Food is the best! They offer Ilocos’ famous cuisine like the poqui-poqui (Ilocos’ tortang talong), bagnet (Ilocos’ lechon kawali) and crispy dinuguan. Also, only  in Herencia Cafe, you can eat pinakbet as pizza. Yes, I know, you can’t imagine eating a pinakbet pizza… but when you get to taste it, ooohhhhhh, yummy, you will surely love it. Overall, food prices were reasonable, we loved the place, loved the food and it was another enjoyable and satisfying meal in Ilocos.

Beach, Sunset, Viaduct, Burgos Lighthouse, Windmills

Evening of 26 Feb 2009, we decided to take the last trip (9.30pm) of Florida bus going to Pagudpud (fare-550php). After the 12 hours bus ride, we finally reached our destination, Pagudpud, rode a trike (fare-50php) going to Polaris beach resort. Had our breakfast around 9.30am, got to try Ilocos’ style longanisa, yummy! We right away went swimming until lunch time. At 2pm, our trike/tour driver arrived and our north bound tour started (tour-600php-per trike). Actually, there was a long list of places to visit but because we started late afternoon, we just went to 4 places – Kabigan Falls (10php entrance fee + 100php tour guide), Blue Lagoon (20php entrance fee), Viaduct, and Agua de Grande. Most of our time was spent in Kabigan Falls, we had to trekked and crossed small rivers to get to the falls (approx. 20-30 mins.) Swimming is allowed, water is so cold but really clean and refreshing. In Blue Lagoon, Viaduct and Agua de Grande, we just had our photos taken – experiencing breath-taking views, calm, and being one with nature.

We didn’t had enough time that afternoon and so our south-bound trip happened the next day. Because we are on a budget, we decided not to take another tour trike and just commute – should have been a bus/jeepney ride and trike. But luckily, the owner of Polaris hotel volunteered to drive us to Bangui (barrio where the Windmills are located). When we got there, we can walk for 2-kms. if we wanted but we decided to ride a trike (90php per trike-2 way). Again, we had a lot of pictures taken, jumping and running with the wind. Last stop, Burgos Lighthouse, we decided to hire our trikes, agreed in a special price of 400php per trike. We were very thankful for our trike drivers, for agreeing to bring us to Burgos, it was a bit far for a trike ride and they were helpful in taking our pictures and watching over our belongings.