Backpacking Philippines: Eat and Run Santiago City, Isabela

Eat and Run Santiago City, Isabela

With the museum geek in him satiated, Tutubi, and his two companions proceeded to their destination just around the corner from Balay na Santiago, a quaint restaurant advertising bangus (milkfish) grill and bibingka.

Branding the name Genaro's bangus grill, the place is a late replacement for the earlier planned trip to Hose 48 Steakhouse for their steaks raved by other bloggers, that sports a simple homey ambiance. A freezer where you point to various ingredients, sort of a Sutukil, on display and cooked per your directions either sinigang (sour broth), nilaga (soupy), inihaw (grilled)

On Bangus, they Genaro's Grill, even with the name grill to the name, serves rellenong bangus, sisig na bangus, kilawin, paksiw and the usual daing na bangus. Typical grill fare of sizzling pork sisig, bangus belly and sizzling squid.

For the sinigang (Filipino style soup with sour broth) there are options for shrimp, prawns, pink salmon, cream dory (pangasius), pork, beef with price range of P180 to P360 (sinigang na sugpo)

Since they're only three and with limited budget, they just ordered sinigang na pink salmon plus the so-called Genaro's treat, a sampler of inihaw na talong (grilled eggplant), grilled milkfish and inihaw na liempo (grilled pork spareribs) with spicy dips.

Pink Salmon in sinigang broth

After the early heavy dinner, Tutubi proceeded to Monte Carlo Hotel for his well-deserved rest and slept soundly throughout the night...

At 7 in the morning, after taking his complimentary breakfast of daing na bangus, Tutubi checked out of the hotel and drove back to Manila. It's in Santiago City's center that they got caught inside heavy traffic due to an on-going parade that he realized that the city's celebrating the fiesta in honor of San Santiago (St. James whose feat day falls on July 25), the same patron saint of his hometown Paete in Laguna. Traffic was so heavy that even large trailer trucks were forced by the city government to traverse the labyrinthine alleys of the city with so little room for maneuvering.

The attempts to evade traffic and find a way out of the city bore positive results when Tutubi stumbled on an old house, bahay na bato architecture, said to be the ancestral house of the Abaya clan while out of an unknown street corner saw a Chinese temple.

Santiago Chinese Temple, no idea if Taoist temple or not since Tutubi just passed by the street where it's located

The ancestral home of the Abayas in Santiago City

From there Tutubi retraced the route back to Manila, stopping momentarily again at G&B in Bagabag, Nueva Vizcaya to buy buko pies as pasalubong, searched for the former POW concentration camp in Cabanatuan City and finally a last minute pasalubong shopping at Sevilla Sweets in San Miguel, Bulacan for the famous pastillas.

Labels: Cagayan Valley, Isabela, Isabela Restaurants

posted by GingGoy @ 9:23 PM,

18 Comments:

At Aug 27, 2008, 8:13:00 PM, atto aryo said...: Yum yum! Hay, pinoy food, i miss you! :-)
At Aug 27, 2008, 8:17:00 PM, Anonymous said...: nice eating stories tutubi..btw, zuchinni is not eggplant. i don't know it's equivalent in 'pinas. i don't remember eating any 'local' types.

mikel
At Aug 28, 2008, 12:28:00 AM, carlotta1924 said...: wow, that was some adventure. looks like you enjoyed it a lot =)

nakakatakam talaga yang sinigang at lalo na yang nasa 2nd pic. =)
At Aug 28, 2008, 8:07:00 AM, Photo Cache said...: Ang sarap naman nung inihaw na bangus at may kasama pang inihaw na talong? Tiyak pagpapawisan ka sa sarap.

Love the photos.
At Aug 28, 2008, 9:16:00 AM, Nicely said...: Wow food! Sarap naman! Sana makapunta din ako dyan soon.
At Aug 28, 2008, 10:11:00 AM, Toe said...: Yum! The sinigang na pink salmon looks really good!

I like that ancestral home of the Abayas.
At Aug 28, 2008, 11:47:00 AM, escape said...: sarap naman ng set na yon.
At Aug 28, 2008, 12:06:00 PM, Dennis Villegas said...: I got hungry just by looking at your photos! I have been to only one town in Isabela..I think it was Alicia (where the bliss housing is) but that was a long time ago. Very scenic province. Nice pictures as always!
At Aug 28, 2008, 6:01:00 PM, Kyels said...: The dishes looked good albeit simple.

;)
At Aug 29, 2008, 10:40:00 PM, GingGoy said...: R-yo, masarap din naman food dyan sa inyo...turning Nihon-jin ka nga lang :P

Mikel, oh yes, i was distracted by that zucchini while grocery shopping at Walter Mart. It looked like an eggplant :( thanks

carlotta, all-expense paid adventure yan :P

Photo-cache, love it spicy hot :)

Nice, Isabela is a nice place, underrated much like Nueva Vizcaya

Toe, that ancestral home is like one of the few remaining, probably burned by the Japanese in WWII or demolished by apathy :(

the dong, masarap nga as in hehe

Dennis, didn't have the chance to visit Alicia. One of my close friends is from there pa naman.

Kyels, most of Filipino cuisine are simple...
At Aug 30, 2008, 10:57:00 PM, Ruy said...: Excellent stopovers.=)
You could have made the short side trip to Banaue Rice Terraces pala from Solano (around 3 hours back and forth by my estimation).
I find that, that place is always great for some peaceful reflection.
At Aug 31, 2008, 11:18:00 AM, GingGoy said...: Ruy, i can't go there. i can't go out of the route that wrong for my vehicle's paid for by my company. i can only make short stops along the way. I've been to Banaue already but only for a short visit, raining also, after sagada and bontoc
At Sep 6, 2008, 1:32:00 PM, Norly Grace said...: i'm from isabela (Santiago City). and i don't get to see a lot of blogs/posts about my provice.

salamat! glad you had fun :)
At Jun 13, 2010, 5:25:00 AM, Anonymous said...: yah masarap tlaga jn lahat ng nka post s photo n yan is ntikman ko s genaros super sarap tlga sila magloto jn at ituro mo iluto nila hnd yng luto n talaga na bibilhin mo
At Sep 20, 2010, 1:34:00 PM, Anonymous said...: nku mniwala kyo d totoo ung mga nkita nyo kpag hndi kayo ngpunta, hndi totoo n masarap pag d nyo pa ntikman, atleast ako masasabi q n mganda ang santiago kc ngpunta n ako at masasabi q din n masarap ang luto ng genaros dhil ntikman q n din...kya try nyo din
At Oct 2, 2010, 1:53:00 PM, Anonymous said...: magan talaga ang santiago..cockfit arena..haha..
At Aug 27, 2011, 6:08:00 PM, Sarah said...: Proud to be Santiagueno!
At Nov 17, 2012, 8:36:00 AM, son said...: Very nice post with very useful information. Thanks for sharing!

Eat and Run Santiago City, Isabela

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