Last February 9, I left for Camarines Norte, a province some 350 kilometers south of Metro Manila and known as the crossroads of the Tagalog and Bicol regions. My colleagues and I were to travel via land to visit different UNICEF-assisted day care (or ECCD--early childhood care and development) project sites in this vast area.
Because land travel time to Camarines Norte, Bicol takes 8-9 hours, we spent the first day traveling to our destination. The road trip was drearily long, uneventful, and consisted of twisting and turning paths up the mountains. I felt carsick at some point but just stayed quiet and concentrated on the music playing on my iPod to keep from hurling on the carpet of our Land Cruiser.
By 5:30 pm, we had reached Cam Norte's capital town, Daet, where we were to stay for the next three nights. Despite its status as the provincial hub, Daet is still a pretty secluded, backwards kind of town, and one ought not to expect any grand hotels in this area--or even 3-star ones for that matter. Villa Mila, our hotel--if you could call it that--was old and shabby and musty-smelling but it was generally clean, and I even felt incredibly lucky that we had aircon, clean towels and hot water in our rooms. In the past, I've been to remote areas where accommodations meant a rickety wooden bed with a mosquito net, an electric fan and a bathroom that had a pail of water and the most basic toilet (read: no flush and no toilet seat). So, Villa Mila was, to me, still a sweet deal for Php 900 per room per night.
We had worked ourselves up to an appetite by the time we reached Daet, so as soon as we checked in our bags, we headed downtown to scout for a place where we were to eat dinner. Our group was craving for Bicol's native fare,
laing and the super spicy Bicol Express, and we wanted a restaurant that served the authentic version.
We were in for a disappointment. In a land where we assumed that
laing was being served in every street corner, we discovered with great dismay that Daet's idea of "in" dining were Jollibee and Chinese restaurants.
Every time a native-looking restaurant came into view, we'd stop the car and check out the menu. No
laing and Bicol Express AT ALL.
Is this a joke? we asked one another incredulously. Are we really in Bicol??
One of our stops was Kingfisher Restaurant, which was recommended by the somewhat zombie-fied staff of Villa Mila. The name 'Kingfisher' alone excited us as it conjured mental images of grilled fish and fresh seafood prepared the native way. One wall of the restaurant showed photos of Kingfisher's six commercial fishing boats, but when we checked the menu, the best sellers were chicken, roasted pork--and Japanese cuisine. And yup, still no
laing and Bicol Express on the menu. There were pork dishes cooked in different ways...but no Bicol Express. W-E-I-R-D.
So we headed out of Kingfisher Restaurant, hungry and disillusioned, and stood in the street discussing where to go next. A woman, who had the air of a donya in those parts, approached us and asked us why we were standing outside when there were many available tables inside her restaurant. Oh. So she was the owner of Kingfisher.
We told her, apologetically, that we were hoping for
laing and Bicol Express, but we checked the menu and found out that her place wasn't serving these. The woman's back stiffened, and suddenly, she was saying in a very antagonistic tone, that her restaurant was far, far different from the other dining places in town and that she did serve Bicol Express, but it was in the ref, ready for thawing and cooking. And in the same tone of voice, she invited us to dine in Kingfisher.
Well, her brand of customer service was certainly different because she didn't sound hospitable at all. In fact, she sounded like a person about to participate in a bare-knuckled fight.
Michelle, who was really craving for
laing, said very politely, "No, thank you, ma'am. We're hoping to try the native
laing tonight for dinner and we'll just try looking for it in another restaurant
po."
And Dante, who had in the past encountered snakes and other wild creatures in the remotest parts of the country and didn't seem like the type to be intimidated easily, piped in somewhat fearfully, "Maybe we'll eat here next time instead...?" His voice trailed off as he gave her an anxious, we-don't-want-any-trouble look.
And Donya Kingfisher, her chin sticking up, launched into yet another loud, angry litany on the culinary delights found in her restaurant (chicken teriyaki was one of them apparently) and that the Bicol Express WAS. IN. HER. REFRIGERATOR. (She pronounced each word with such reverberating emphasis.)
Where was all this anger coming from?
She was getting scarier and scarier. (And I was thinking wildly in my head that she had a clear, straight path in my direction and could easily pin me down to the ground with her weight if we refused point-blank to eat in her restaurant.)
I don't remember exactly how we managed to escape her; I was too afraid to look back. Haha. I'm sure the others gave another round of hurried apologies and then we all got into the car as quickly as we could. After a few more minutes of restaurant-searching, my stomach was really growling in hunger. Truth be told, I didn't care at that point if we were going to eat
laing or some mediocre version of Chinese food; I just wanted some food in my system. But the others were dead set on eating authentic Bicol food--and so the quest continued.
When the next restaurant came into view, my heart sank. It was called Central Plaza Restaurant (or something like that) and from the looks of it, it was another Chinese dining place. But we still decided to ask anyway.
I was the first to go in and I asked the usual question: Do you serve
laing and Bicol Express?
The person I approached happened to be the owner--some Chinese-looking dude--but thank God he was the very opposite of Donya in the restaurant owner behavior spectrum. In a pleasant tone of voice, he apologized and said right away that they didn't serve that kind of food but they had other Filipino dishes in the menu, and Chinese food as well (but of course).
Filipino cuisine served in this resto but, er, no special Bicol dish? I was beginning to think that we had stumbled into some sort of gastronomic conspiracy and that the locals' memories had probably been modified by some
laing-hating alien.
And then--
"Although if you really want
laing and Bicol Express," he said slowly, as if he was thinking hard to himself, "I can come up with something."
My eyebrows shot up. If this guy was willing to give us what we wanted even if it wasn't on the menu, who were we to refuse?
Ecstatic and bordering on ravenous, we sat ourselves down wearily in one table and started ordering rice and stuff. The restaurant was clean and bright, and with many customers eating, so we felt good about our decision to eat here. I could already see Mr. Chinese Magic Man busying himself in the kitchen (which was in plain view) with his staff, and I heaved a sigh of relief. We were going to eat at last.
When the food arrived, I wanted to laugh. Well, in fact I did. I suppose it took a lot of effort on the part of the owner to really produce the dishes we wanted using the current resources he had, because both the
laing and Bicol Express came in a small saucer each, looking like such precious commodities.
The Bicol Express tasted more like
binagoongan, which was a bit disappointing, but oh well. As for the
laing, it tasted different from the kind of
laing we were accustomed to, but it was good and the saucer was wiped clean immediately. While we ate, we amused ourselves by suggesting theories on how Mr. Chinese Magic Man conjured up the dishes. Because the restaurant was situated near some houses, he had, in all likelihood, knocked on his neighbor's door and asked for a dish of
laing.
And even if the
laing he served wasn't spectacular, Central Plaza Restaurant gets plus points for going the extra mile in terms of customer service. (And in price too! Their family-sized
sinigang had a generous serving of
hipon, and it cost a little over 100 pesos only!)
So when you happen to be in Daet, well, you'll see a lot of
gabi trees by the road, but don't expect to find the elusive
laing in menus. It's still a mystery that we haven't managed to clear up, by the way.
