Going to Negros without the shades but with a ready palate

The City of Smiles is waiting. Photo grabbed from paraisophilippines.com

In a few days time, I will be going to Bacolod, Negros Occidental's capital city, for the first time, to join with foodies/gourmands from all over the Philippines for a once in a lifetime experience- to go on a food trip. The thought of sampling food from Sugarlandia makes my mouth water.

Did I just mentioned it would be my first time in Bacolod? And I am more than excited at the prospect of seeing the city I have heard so much praise given.

Our host, Lee Santiago, a fellow blogger who has an exceptional photoblog Give Me Travel Funds, after several coaxing, finally agreed to accommodate us in his busy schedules and act like a host. So far he has done more than mere hosting. We have not arrive yet.

My official airline: Cebu Pacific. Photo grabbed from airports-worlwide.com

Thus, despite the fact that I have very limited resources and the busiest schedule of the year, I signed up for the trip. That's aside from another fact that I already have a free round-trip airfare from Cebu Pacific courtesy of my sis who works in that company. The ticket and the will to visit that city forced me to pack up and be ready for the weekend visit. (Shhh, I fought with my supervisor with this "unwanted vacation" and we are not telling our manager.)

To make my visit miserable and complicated for me, Lee made up an itinerary that requires the assistance of Robert Langdon. The itinerary is heavily tainted with mysterious clues I have yet to decipher. But what's going to happen to me, a Bacolod-virgin, will be in the hands of Lee. Even if Langdon has not responded to my request. Yet. So I will be going there with a puzzled mind and will just sink and sync (or swim) with the group.

Our proposed itinerary includes:

DAY 1:

* Skyflakes and Water Buffet

* The "Mon" is Rising

* Avoid Lunch

* Scout for Provisions

* The Cow's Sound Wraps the Foot

* Dessert para wala na clue-clue!
DAY 2:

* Northern Exposure

* Lunch

* SugART industry

* KILLER TRILOGY
DAY 3:
* South to East: Eat Cheap... Forage... Beg... Ask to be Fed...

* A Negrense Dinner that will turn a saint to a sinner: (Must! We eat cheap at daytime for this.)

With that mind-boggling itinerary I am very sure my trip to the City of Smiles will be something worth smiling about. The sinful but exciting thought of food would surely be THE reason, the only one, why I will be bloating more from this trip. I won't be bringing with me my shades.

Food for the hungry soul

People might have noticed that I got thinner so they were more worried what I was eating (or not eating) than I actually did.

The Ortegas, Glo and Gilda, brought me to Khrua Thai again and treat to me a sumptuous dinner despite my insistence that I was really not hungry. But still I ordered Sticky Rice with Mango Ice-Cream as a consequence.

The girls had a great dinner ordering vegetable salad, some rice that looked like nasi goreng but with Chinese sausages, and a Phad Thai. Yeah I only took a taste of the salad since most of the dishes the girls ordered had pork on them.

As usual, Khrua Thai delivered its signature dishes.

Food Trip 2

Additional pics of the food we ate. Gutom ako bigla.

What's the difference between home-cooked food and fastfoods? Wala actually, except that you can see and be seen in those fastfood chains where we go. Nakakasawa na yung mga mukha ng mga tao sa bahay hahahaha. Yun lang. Attention-whore na ako.

Next time sex scandals na naman hahahahaha. (Cheap!)

Food Trip

I haven't been so hungry in my life. Just this one. So off I go with a friend on a food trippin'. Since I rarely eat real food, we decided to make it in two days. We went to Roma Mia. Sunburst Fried Chicken. Gloria Jean's. Chowking. Bo's Coffee Club. Funny I can't even recall the names of some of the food we ate. I had my fill...