Western Visayas Food Trip: A Night on Bantayan Island

I began this day in late September last year with a 6 am flight from Bacolod to Cebu, followed by a snaking drive through the morning rush hour to get to the North Cebu Bus Terminal. I had to settle in for a 4-hour ride on a local bus, headed to Hagnaya Port on the northwest tip of the mainland. Time for much-needed breakfast.

I bought a pack of steaming hot, spongy bibingka - three for P20, around $0.50 CAD - from a vendor who hopped on the bus as we passed a local basketball court.

Around here, bibingka is enjoyed in what I think is one of its simplest, most delicious forms - steamed in custom made (though by western standards, seemingly makeshift) ovens often made of thin sheets of metal. In the Visayas region, bibingka (or bibingkang Bisaya) is typically made with coconut milk, rice flour, margarine and a little sugar. That whiff of burnt coconut, from the husks the heat the oven, above and below the metal box that’s efficiently and perfectly steamed hundreds of rice cakes daily, for generations… it’s just the best. I remember reading that here, bibingka was often made in roadside stalls, so producers could sell their cakes to passing vehicles and ambulant vendors directly where they’re made.

I realized that I couldn’t - and shouldn’t - compare this bibingka to the (sometimes garishly excessive) cheese- and sugar-topped, shelf-stable bibingkas that I regularly enjoyed on trips to the mall. That part of bibingka’s evolution just took a different path.

At Hagnaya Port, I had the kind of lunch designed for waiting passengers - longganisang Cebu and pork barbecue, cooked to order in minutes, with a packet of puso (rice steamed in woven coconut leaves) - before boarding the one-hour ferry.

I stayed at a place called Kandugyap House By The Sea, about 15 minutes outside the town of Sante Fe on Bantayan Island. Don’t forget to give them a call when your ferry departs for the island, so they can arrange a tricycle pick up from the terminal when you arrive. Though I only stayed the night, I loved and was totally surprised by how much I enjoyed it! After weeks of travelling, a quiet resort - with a nearby completely empty beach on the day I visited - was exactly what I needed.

Every time I think about ordering dinner (which of course, happens a lot) I eventually think about these crabs cooked in coconut milk and chilies. Since it was well into off-peak tourist season, the resort’s kitchen was closed, but the caretaker quickly handed me a menu from a local “paluto” style restaurant (with food cooked to order) that I could request to be delivered from town.

I mean, it’s easily the #bestdeliverydinner ever - but I guess I really can’t, and shouldn’t, compare freshly caught, roe-filled mudcrabs in coconut milk to the options I have in downtown Toronto.