Some Things to See in Santa Ignacia

Some days ago, Ms. Winea of the local government unit of Santa Ignacia approached me needing help with some frames required of the municipality by the provincial government of Tarlac.  Nine frames in total, I was asked to do layouts for seven of them.

With express permission from Ms. Winea, here are the seven photos I did for Santa Ignacia:

"The Pikkan Falls at Brgy. Calipayan. Thinly veiled by lush greenery within rolling fields and hills of Barangay Calipayan lies Santa Ignacia's secret, unlocked only by the seasons." Source photo from Carmela Prado.

"Brgy. Calipayan. Barangay Calipayan is a stretch of green abundance, situated at the western area of the municipality.  Its wood and farm lands are speckled with pools, ponds and creeks, both natural and man made, reflecting the serenity of the Santa Ignacia sky." 

"Woodinspirations Crafts. Magic happens in Barangay Poblacion East with an enterprise transforming second hand wood and bamboo into little trinkets and souvenirs for homes, offices, and gifts.  Woodinspirations does not only create memories from discardables, it also betters the lives of farmers, women and out of school youth."

"Pottery in Santa Ignacia. Some patches of soil in Santa Ignacia have been found to be suitable for pottery.  Local craftsmen have mastered the art of making paso (planters), traditional palayoks (cooking pots) dalikan (stoves) and eventually jars for indoor and outdoor aesthetics."

"Pascasio's Pottery. In Barangay Baldios, Pascasio's Pottery has set up a kiln and with it, batch upon batch of freshly fired ceramics of terra cotta clay.  In the yard are many different varieties of plants and landscaping accessories the visiting gardener can lay his eyes on."

"Kabyawan at Barangays San Francisco, Cabaruan and Taguiporo.  Sugarcane is traditionally milled in Barangay San Francisco, Cabaruan and Taguiporo from the months of December to May.  A kalabaw goes around the machine, squeezing the extracts from the stalks.  The sweet juice is later used to prepare local delicacies like the patupat (rice cakes wrapped in buri leaves) and kalti (cassava or papaya boiled in sugar) among others as it has always been since ages past." Source photo from Ms. Winea of LGU Santa Ignacia.

"Santa Ignacia's Patupat. Subtly sweet sticky rice wrapped in silag (buri) leaves, Santa Ignacia's patupat is cooked by boiling it in sugarcane juice.  A common sight in the public market, these along with local specialties such as kinalti, tupig, suman, iniruban, and other rice cakes make popular pasalubongs for the indulgent traveler."  Source photo from Ms. Winea of LGU Santa Ignacia.

Santa Ignacia, like the rest of Tarlac, has its understated charms, rarely known to everyone.

These frames, along with the rest of the municipalities' of the province will be available for viewing at the Museo de Tarlac.

The Beef with Tarlac Is That It's Too Hot for Bulalo.

Being in Central Luzon has its perks.

You get exposed to at least three cultures.  Ilocano, Kapampangan and Tagalog. With these, their cuisines.

Ilocanos are known for cooking awesome vegetables. Pakbet Ilocano. Nobody needs to say more than that.  Meats are awesome too with bagnet, and we have the local incarnation of that little piece of heaven (go cholesterol! lol) with chicharron Camiling.

Kapampangans are the cuisine lords of Luzon. It's a generally established fact. Sisig please! Plus the Kapampangan version of dinuguan is my personal favorite.

There's also the usual adobo, and many chevon dishes. Rice cakes. Ugh. Food in Tarlac is awesome, really. But all that's really not the point of this post.

The beef with Tarlac, however, is that it's a bit too hot for bulalo. Oh bulalo. Beef, the king of meats, in its purest Filipino cuisinal incarnation is hard to appreciate in Tarlac.  When you say bulalo of course, you go to either Baguio or Tagaytay. However, let me be a bit hipster here and say that those places could be too mainstream. Lol kidding. The pleasure of eating bulalo in Baguio or Tagaytay of course comes with the mountainous climate.

The point of this post? I just had the best bulalo I've had in my entire 26 years of existence. And it's in a very nondescript place in Tarlac. Just outside Triple 888 Coliseum, in Capas. BULALO. IN TARLAC. How?!

Left: Google Maps screenshot of where to find that bulalo. Right: Google Street View of the closest landmark, Triple 888 Coliseum.

I can imagine having the dish with my beer, or after my beer. Or in the monsoon weather. Or right about January when the wind isn't so warm, which includes now so...

Shantal's Eatery as shown in Google Street View. 

The place is called Shantal's Eatery. It's really not your Instagram-worthy hipster kind of setup with the wire-mesh and naked concrete exteriors, Monobloc chairs and plastic Coca-cola tables (for the record, hipster now is mainstream, so what's the point? lol)... but the bulalo is just divine.  We had a meal in Shantal's. 2 large bowls of bulalo, a serving of bistek, 5 cups of rice and a bottle of C2 Litro. All that for 220. TWO HUNDRED TWENTY LANG *#@!%%(!!!!

Not your ordinary bulalo in a very ordinary presentation.

Now on to the bulalo! Putting the flesh apart was like separating strands of corned beef. It was that soft! Despite that, it didn't have the mushy quality you get from really bad canned corned beef. The taste was also perfectly balanced. It wasn't too salty, and wasn't too rich but had the right umami. Sebo pretty much was nonexistent. I remember getting greasy lips applying chap stick but this bulalo did not give me one bit of that icky feeling anywhere in my mouth. There's about two wombok leaves tossed in there too, not that it matters but hey, it's something!

So if I'm gonna act like a food blogger, might as well have 100% internalization and on to the scores!

Taste: 9/10

Texture: 9/10

Presentation: Kusina ni lola/10

Surprise factor: 10/10