Dumagueteños are not only gentle people; they also have a passionate attitude towards food.
Ask anybody in Dumaguete what business he would put up if given the opportunity, and most likely, he would say a restaurant, a coffee shop, a carinderia, or a fastfood franchise.
Even I dream of setting up a breakfast nook somewhere in Dumaguete someday. I would name it, well, Breakfast Nook.
You will see in Dumaguete that food stores are all around you, and making very good business–may it be the high-end restaurant, a carinderia, or just the lowly pushcart selling boiled peanuts or sweet corn. Let’s face it, Dumagueteños love to eat–and to eat out.
We went gaga when Jollibee opened its first branch in Dumaguete. We could not get enough of it, and so we suffered long lines just to get our hands on its langhap-sarap meals.
It still is true until now. Other food chains followed, and each time one opened, we made a made dash to it, and said hi to almost everybody in Dumaguete. And we all went away sated “to the bones”.
But not only fastfood chains are doing brisk business in Dumaguete. Restaurants which offer fine food, good service, and ambiance are, too.
We want to experience the pleasure of being served interesting and unique gourmet dishes, perfectly arranged on a platter, and served by a uniformed waiter, too. Food may come to you like a work of art (which I believe it is), it breaks your heart to even touch it.
When we pine for seafood, several restaurants offer an abundance of seafood dishes–grilled, fried, steamed, or just raw. It is a testament of Dumaguete being a coastal town where fishing is one of the main livelihoods of its people.
We can always take our pick from a myriad of dishes such as camaron rebosado, gambas, kinilaw, fish and chips, or even the award-winning Dumaguete Express.
It is amazing how food stores in Dumaguete City can sit side by side, and yet, enjoy the patronage of Dumagueteños.
Along Hibbard Ave., you can find several barbecue grills, hamburger joints, and chicken grills, one after another, and still manage to fill their places to the rafters.
Of course, most of their clientele are students who prefer casual dining, where food is inexpensive, and yet, good, and where they can be with friends and be loud, even rowdy.
There is always a food stall in almost all corners in the City — little carinderias offering food of various kinds. It never ceases to amaze me when at dusk, food stalls appear like magic along the streets selling tocino (pork cured in sugar or fruit juice), adidas (chicken feet), grilled isaw (chicken intestines), grilled chicken livers and gizzards, along with puso (triangular-shaped ‘hanging rice’ steamed in woven coco leaves), and sawsawan (sauce). But of course, our favorite is the tempurahan at the Rizal Blvd.
There is one hole-in-the wall carinderia along San Juan St. that offers binisaya food called Nanay’s Foodcourt. It has a long table display of sinugbang baboy (grilled pork), inun-unan (fish cooked in vinegar), apan-apan (adobong kangkong/water spinach), halang-halang (chicken cooked in coconut milk and chili), and tinunu-ang utan (vegetables cooked in coconut milk), among many others.
Nanay’s Foodcourt may be tiny, dark even, but the line is long, especially at noontime. The owner, fondly called Nanay, is a smiling lady who serves you your food herself, and when there is a break, she just might come to your table and ask you how you liked the food. If she gets comfortable with you, she just might tell you a snippet of her life story.
Indeed, we in Dumaguete City love to eat out. We only have to pat our pockets, and if they feel busog, we go to a restaurant, a carinderia, a fastfood, or opt for street food. There is an endless variety of food to choose from: Filipino, American, Mexican, Mid Eastern, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, even Jamaican.
I guess we in Dumaguete are just lucky that way.
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Author’s email: tourismDumaguete@yahoo.com
