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A lot has already been written about Balaw-Balaw restaurant:
about how foreign dignitaries in distinctly ambassadorial
vehicles are usually conveyed there for an hour or two
of Pinoy culture: an exotic meal of bayawak or sawa
while sitting on wicker chairs and surrounded by flowers,
doilies, and uniformed waiters that look like they're
about to burst into a kundiman anytime. Here,
it is impossible to sit still. The eyes are already
full even before the stomach is sated. There are paintings,
sculptures, and papier maches everywhere, lovingly preserved
by the family of the late Perdigon Vocalan, the proprietor
and owner of the extensive art collection that occupies
three more floors inside the sprawling structure. Everything
that has been written about the restaurant is posted
on a weathered billboard, guarded by a white bust of
a solicitous-looking woman on top of a table nearby.
Here, I peruse the numerous clippings on Mr. Vocalan
and the place's history and decide that its beautiful
story has to be retold.
In the past, Angono was what Sagada is to us now - FAR.
You negotiated the old East Road that crawled to Laguna
and beyond. Trees and greens were still abundant in
the hills, and if you were lucky, you would have witnessed
the great Manuel Conde himself shooting Genghis Khan
on one of those hills now being whittled down and quarried
away for capitalist consumption.
Now, thanks
to the same world order that is eating away at its natural
resources, Angono is just ten kilometers or so away
from Ortigas Center via a national road that can be
accessed from C-5. But despite these very literal inroads,
Balaw-Balaw looks just as it was many years ago. It
is, after all, home to the Vocalan family, and who would
ever want to change the seat of one's childhood and
dreams?
Its patriarch,
Perdigon Vocalan was a painter, a true Angono artisan.
In fact, he worked as a houseboy for Carlos "Botong"
Francisco just so he could see up close and personal
how the maestro worked. After this unusual apprenticeship,
he started painting works for sale. Subsequently, he
earned enough from his paintings of mother and child
and idyllic landscapes to send his young sons to school.
When he got a windfall from a big project, Vocalan put
up Balaw-Balaw, and the rest is food history.
Balaw-Balaw is actually the name of an appetizer served
with sinigang dishes. Fermented from small shrimps,
gruel and herb coloring, this creamy, pinkish siding
is the first thing you want on the table. It magically
heightens the flavor of whatever food you fancy. Choose
from a rich menu that includes nilasing na hipon,
sinigang na ulo ng karpa, dinilawang palos, or if
you're up to it, some adobong sawa or bayawak.
But if you've brought the whole baranggay along for
an excursion, forget the small ala carte and go for
the big one -- the minaluto, a huge bilao of
rice, mussels, prawns, crabs, gumbo, water spinach,
fried pork and eggplant nestled on banana leaves and
fired on a portable stove. Then, have some guinumis
for dessert, made from gelatin, sago, pinipig and coconut
milk. Then don't forget to take an antacid afterwards.
Location:
16 Don Justo, Dona Justa Subdivision Angono, Rizal
Tel. 6510110 6485779
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