pancit chronicles, episode 3: batil patung @ eva's panciteria, tuguegarao city

Pancit Batil Patung @ Eva's Panciteria (Annafunan Panciteria), Tuguegarao City.

Eva’s Panciteria (a.k.a. Annafunan Panciteria) is one of the most famous panciterias in Tuguegarao City, it being one of the most secluded that only the pancit batil patong “addicts” in the city can easily locate to satisfy their pancitly urge. Seclusion, or perhaps even secrecy (they don’t even have signages or billboards), made some panciterias in Tuguegarao the more popular as only the so-called real pancit connoisseurs bother to reach or are challenged to find these literal holes in the wall noodle houses. And I mean literal houses. Like the equally famous and secluded Lamud’s (or ECP, whatever) Panciteria in Barangay Cataggaman Nuevo, that panciteria in Barangay Annafunan is a noodle nook right in a residential house painted yellow (it was mentioned as a “green house” in Claude Tayag and Mary Ann Quioc’s Linamnam: Eating One’s Way Around the Philippines. Yes, Eva’s Panciteria (as Annafunan Panciteria) is listed in this culinary travel book, one of the only three batil patong panciterias mentioned, the two others being Lamud’s Panciteria and ECL Panciteria [in Barangay Carig]).

Batil patong time, past 3PM, with some pancit gourmands, at Eva's Panciteria.

And this is Manang Eva, the famous batil patong cook, dubbed and crowned as “Batil Patong Queen” in the city by her loyal pancit eaters and followers:

Just like most panciterias in the city, the kitchen and the cooking of the batil patong that you ordered is open for the curious (and envious) to gawk or observe upon. Here, you can watch the skills of a bating patong cook, and here, Manang Eva is really exceptional and impressive she could be a pancit chef in the White House alongside Chef Cristeta Comerford:

And so, after about 15 minutes of waiting, here are our orders, plates runneth over with heaps of carabeef meat, pork liver and egg toppings:

Pancit batil patong pure goodness topped with sautéed ground carabao meat and pork liver adobo and poached egg. No other fancy toppings of lechon carajay bits or pulverized pork cracklings, no veggies either, sorry, but it’s this simple and basic enough. A really gorgeous pancit, if you ask me:

The poached egg is just as perfectly rare or medium rare:

The egg oozing over the whole of the batil patong. And of course, the obligatory chopped raw sibuyas:

And with the accompanying egg soup. And yes, with the ubiquitous Tuguegarao-made “Malabon” brand soy sauce. In Tuguegarao, batil patong is not batil patong, if not flavored by this unique soy sauce. It maybe an acquired taste, but we so-called pancit aficionados in Tuguegarao swear and attest that other soy sauce brands won’t just fit in, they spoil the batil patongness of the real Tuguegarao batil patong, amen:

The egg reigning over. Extraordinary, this batil patong, is:

Spicing it a bit, with cracked paminta:

Enjoying the batil patong is naturally messy, it’s a required way to relish it, you can’t get away with all the sauces and juices, flavor and aroma fused to serve you all the goodness of a real batil patong. And here, Eva’s Panciteria’s version will not fail your strict expectation and craving for the original one, the all-meaty essence has only enhanced the pancitness of the whole pancit thing without any extra veggie flavor to intrude the taste and deliciousness. The miki or noodles is just cooked perfectly right, the sautéed meat to meet and please even the most finicky who can’t bear the intense and distinctive carabao meat smell (angdod, anggo):

And I can’t help but to finish off my plate, my cup of soup, and that saucer of onions with calamansi and sili. For sure, I’m one satisfied suki from hereon, Eva’s Panciteria will be among my list of must-be-there panciterias in the city, I’m one lucky bastard who finally found it, it’s a real quest, a literal one, what with the numerous wrong alleys and turns before finally finding the place, it’s a gastronomic el dorado of sort:

Be there, experience the quest, too, if you’re a pers taym adventurer, search it along the crooks and crannies of Annafunan East. It’s at the end of Aquino Street if you’re from the main road in Annafunan going to Barangay Linao, the street right across the Catholic church. Or take the interior road from Atulayan Norte going to Linao, passing Sunshine Valley Homes II, turn to a small street entering through some bamboo thickets along the main road. Sounds challenging enough, go!

UPDATE: As of this blog post, Eva’s Panciteria has moved to a separate sort of a building of its own, bigger and more spacious, located in the same compound in Annafunan East, just beside the old yellow-painted panciteria. I’ll be posting a part two soon about my new batil patong experience in the new Eva’s Panciteria. New place, but of course, the same phenomenal pancit batil patong that only Manang Eva can create:

More pancit batil patong stories:

• Pancit Chronicles, Episode 1: Batil patung @ Triangle's Panciteria, Tuguegarao City
• Pancit Chronicles, Episode 2: Batil patung @ Lamud's Panciteria, Tuguegarao City

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artem a bawang, young garlic pickled in ilocos (cane) vinegar

Pickled young garlic and chili in cane vinegar.

We relish artem or inartem (pickles, pickled), and we fancy pickling, fermenting almost anything in vinegar to freeze the freshness and succulence of fruits and veggies: the usual cool cucumber, carrots, green papayas, onions, chilis, bell peppers, even young string beans. We especially love pickled hot chilis, fermented in suka ti basi (Ilocos cane vinegar from the famous basi [actually sour/soured basi], akin to the beloved pinakurat of the Visayans, from their tuba), for our dips. And Ilokanos particularly make fine artem out of green garlic come garlic season in the Ilocos where young garlic is abundant in the market. Ilokanos prize naganus a bawang for a special dinengdeng or pinakbet a bawang, and as an added spice in their vegetable dishes. And the rest of it find their way into artem.

I tried it myself one bawang season when I got some freshly uprooted bawang being sold in Cagayan (the vendor said it came right from Pasuquin, Ilocos Norte):

Luckily, I still got some suka ti basi, which I bought a year ago in a roadside bawang-lasona-suka-basi stall in Pinili, Ilocos Norte--which means this suka is kind of "aged":

Preparing the bawang, cut, with the hot chili ready, then bottled it in suka, seasoned with salt, black peppers, some brown sugar to sweeten it a bit, and I added some young lasona just for the heck of it:

And there, I have two-jarfuls and a bottle of artem a bawang:

I set aside my artem in a cool, dry, place to ferment. After about two weeks, here's it, the great Ilokano suka has done its chemical magic--it turned the bawang and the chili into a great spice, the bawang is still crisp and crunchy and succulent, its tang and zest intact in its now sour-sweet state:

Really perfect sawsawan and spice for almost everything edible. I dream of it drenched in my pinapaitan, in my grilled and fried fish and meat, in my barbecues, or simply in my pinakbets and dinengdengs:

Meanwhile, let me try it in this fried tuyo:

Man, it's just so insanely good!

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dinardaraan, dry or soupy?

Namaga a dinardaraan a naparabawan iti naparsik a silet.

Dinardaraan or dinuguan or blood stew (also called "chocolate" by some folks, and sapsapuriket [usually when it's chicken dinardaraan]) is a unique Pinoy way of turning pork blood, or any animal--domesticated or wild--blood, be it cow's, carabao's, goat's, chicken's, duck's, dog's and the like, into a kind of delicacy. Although it's not really that exotic or gross, this dinardaraan thing. Except maybe for connoisseurs or gourmands like  celebrity chefs Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern and other foreigners who consider even our dear balut as a bizarre food as if they're not relishing escargot or find extreme delight devouring canned rattlesnake on their sandwich. Or, on blood matters, perhaps they're not aware of blood sausages a.k.a black/blood pudding beloved by the Europeans.

And dinardaraan, is prepared/cooked and served in a variety of ways. With Ilokanos, most prefer the dry one, the blood a kind of paste, with its meat and/or offals deep fried into crackling crunchy bits, like these two dinardaraan varieties in Tuguegarao City:

And this one from Ilocos Norte (Laoag City), served with the fried pork intestines/tripe put atop the cooked blood:

And then, later the fried intestine is mixed up with the blood:

Some Ilokanos prefer a slightly dry dinardaraan, with a little thick broth for the rice:

And this is a soupy dinardaraan, also preferred when one is fond of kaldo. The broth is great with sili ti sairo and suka ti basi for a hot dinardaraan soup:

When I cook dinardaraan, I have two options, dry and soupy, for I love my rice with blood soup:

How about you, how do you like your chocolate?

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red/purple katuday

Nalabbasit a katuday.

It's February. And it's 14th. Supposedly a lovers' day for all. It's also flowers and chocolate's day, you can't imagine how many tons of cut flowers and chocolate bars may have been gifted upon and consumed on this single day of the year...

And to join the grand celebration of romance, I have here a heap of red flowers for you. Actually purple. And this is edible, mind you. This is a variety of katuday. What more could you wish for, beautiful red flowers and it's edible, too! We'll make a dinengdeng or a salad out of it to make it the more enjoyable, delightful, delicious! Naimas, naim-imas!

Let's enjoy the beauty of the blossoms first, before we subject it into a dissection to prepare it for cooking (click on the photos for a larger view):

For this dinengdeng, the purple katuday will be paired with crisp pallangs. I added camote cubes (not shown) to sweeten and starch the broth, thus making it a kind of buridibod.

Luckily, I've got some grilled tilapia as an "al-alia" (sagpaw, add-on) for my dinengdeng. I boiled it first in the simmering bugguong broth:

And it's done! It's just so unfortunate that the purple katuday lost its fabulous color and texture when it's cooked/wilted--it turned into an unsightly bluish black, much to my consternation, arrgggh! But anyway, the dinengdeng is so promising as you can see--the same bittersweet katuday flavor enhanced by the starchy sweet potato and the crispy and still green pallang:

The rest of the red blossoms, I made into a salad with KBL (kamatis-bugguong-lasona):

That's it. But I just can't get away with the royal color of this katuday, so let's have them in its majestic splendor yet again:

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