Roaming Malabon, Part 2

Apart from its preserved heritage, Malabon offers quite an interesting culinary experience, A bit more varied than one might perceive. I was lucky to be part of a food trip around the city to experience Malabon cuisine, and some other interesting sidelights along the way.

Our first stop was a carinderia or eatery called Mely’s Carinderia. While on the outside it has the appearance of a regular carinderia we see on any neighborhood here, Mely’s has quite a reputation actually of being Malabon’s best carinderia. It’s not hard to see why, as this humble establishment offers quite a menu, most especially the famed tapang kabayo or horse meat. Not to mention the food there tasting that good. Of course taste is subjective.

Speaking of tapang kabayo, apparently Malabon is one of the few places in the metropolis that has such fondness for horse meat. You can never miss fresh horse meat being sold at some public market in Malabon, like this one.

But going back to our little food tour, we then tried some dessert, a turon actually but of a different kind called the turon pinipig, which is triangular in shape and has pinipig and a thick caramel shell. Apparently also, the turon of Malabon actually contains munggo or mung beans rather than the usual banana stuffed in it. (the banana turon actually called balensya in Malabon)

Doing a walking tour makes one better appreciate the local atmosphere and the uniqueness of the local atmosphere, so to speak. Like Malabon’s transport,

or its vibrant community music, especially of its marching and local bands.

Our next stop was supposed to be Rosy’s, the legendary home of the famous Malabon delicacy, the Pancit Malabon. While there are a number of Pancit Malabon restaurants out there, especially in Malabon, Rosy’s has been considered the hallmark of what good Pancit Malabon is. Beginning as a small carinderia-type of operation more than 60 years ago, it soon became a household name as its fame of having the best tasting Pancit Malabon began to grow.

It was unfortunate though that Aling Rosy Pacheco, the second generation proprietor of the restaurant for almost 60 years passed on the night before. So we decided to drop by the place anyway to pay our respects to Malabon icon.

We then headed onwards to try out another specialty, special que kiam sold at this unassuming sari-sari store called Aling Upeng’s. This is the Chinese inspired que kiam which is wrapped similarly to that of a lumpiang shanghai.

Moving forward is another famous Malabon food landmark, the original home of Arny-Dading’s, the famed maker of the cassava-based Filipino dessert called the peachy-peachy.

 

To be continued…

Click here for the links to the first, third, and fourth parts of this series.

Again my thanks to MyMalabon for some additional info

 

© The Urban Roamer