Pinoy Food & Other Cuisine :: Food PhotoBlog and Events |

The Christ the King weekend market is the North’s little version of the Salcedo weekend market, a cozy affair that boasts of all sorts of edibles you wouldn’t be able to find at the mall or supermarket. There’s an interesting hodgepodge of vendors selling fresh seafood, ready-to-eat meals, and everything in between.
On Sunday mornings, the market is fairly busy with families who had just arrived from mass at the nearby Christ the King church. Instead of going out to lunch somewhere, they usually stock up on the cooked food being sold, like Cebu lechon, pancit malabon, and cheesy macaroni to name a few. There’s also a lot of dessert to be found, from sweet pinipig suman to rich chocolate brownies.

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Mid-March marks the start of summer as well as the season for star apples or kaymito. This fruit can be found in most warm, tropical climates; in the Philippines, you can find star apples growing around the southern Tagalog region and being sold by roadside vendors for 25 pesos a kilo (around 3 or 4 star apples). You’ll know a star apple is ripe when its skin has a dark purple, eggplant-like hue; it turns green when the fruit softens and becomes overripe. Be careful not to eat a star apple while it’s still hilaw; it will taste strange and have the weird consistency of latex.

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Aside from the Saturday Market at Salcedo Village Park, there is a Sunday Organic Market along the parking lot of Paseo de Magallanes , South Superhighway. It started last February 25, 2007. Though not as many stalls as the Salcedo Community Food Market, there were pretty good number of stalls.
Seen at the market are smoked ham, vegetarian lumpia, suman, laing, cakes, breads, Angus steak, Cebu Lechon, fish, vegetables, meats, shawarma, plants, herbs, dried fish and lots more. Just view more photos of the Sunday Organic Market so you will have an idea what to buy at the market.

Today we had a chance to taste dragon fruit, an import from Vietnam. The round fruit is bright pink-purple and its leathery peel is in layers and turned up at the tips, supposedly resembling a dragon’s horns. One easily peels it by hand to reveal its white flesh, studded with tiny black seeds. It has a mild and refreshing flavor, with a texture similar to kiwi fruit. It tastes like a cross between kiwi fruit and guava: less tangy than kiwi fruit but less sweet than guava. A nice treat for desert and (I would imagine) good in a green salad. It costs P120 a kilo from street vendors in Binondo and would probably be more expensive in supermarkets.

Dragon Fruit

Hylocereus undatus

a.k.a. Pitahaya, Strawberry Pear

Round, often red colored fruit with prominent scales. The thin rind encloses the large mass of sweetly flavored white or red pulp and small black seeds. Some varieties are pinkish or yellow.

The fruit is popular eaten chilled, out of hand. It is also used to flavor drinks and pastries. Unopened flowerbuds are cooked and eaten as vegetables.

Here are Dragon Fruit Pictures.

At our dinner table

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