F&G: Tagaytay

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Happy New Year!

Some of our Manila friends took us on an overnight to Tagaytay on Thursday and Friday. Tagaytay and Lake Taal are about a two hour drive south of Manila and the closest cool weather getaway from the capital. The weather was noticeably colder, similar to the temperatures and drier air we had in Hong Kong. It’s a very different experience being tourists accompanying other locals than as foreigners on our own and our trip would be very difficult to replicate without them. They picked us up in late morning from our apartment and we arrived at Sonya’s Garden in Tagaytay for lunch just before noon. As the road climbed up to the ridge of the mouth of the volcano (check out the links in the second sentence on Tagaytay and Lake Taal) we passed by several shops selling handmade wooden furniture and many fruit stands, although we later learned that much of the fruit sold there is actually grown in other cities and that the prices are hiked up for all of the tourists visiting Tagaytay. Pineapple is the one local fruit of Tagaytay and we saw hectares and hectares (no one measures with acres here) of pineapple fields. Each pineapple plant only produces one fruit at a time and a new plant can grow simply by planting the chopped off top of a pineapple fruit. This video shows how to twist off a pineapple when it is ready to be harvested. We sampled jackfruit or langka for the first time at one of the fruit stands we passed.

We had a deliciously fresh lunch at Sonya’s Garden. It’s become a very popular destination for weddings and almost all of their produce is grown on site. Our menu featured unlimited salad and pasta, both with unlimited fresh toppings. A simple meal but fun presentation and comforting to taste flavors from home. It was our first time having pesto since leaving the U.S.

After lunch we stopped by Marian’s family’s vacation home on the ridge to get a view of Lake Taal. Most of Tagaytay is located on a busy highway with no sidewalks, but the buildings on the lake side of the ridge highway really do have great views of the lake and the smaller volcano located within Lake Taal. Still stuffed, we piled back in the van and stopped to buy dinner, including espasol, at a local market before heading over to the vacation home of RJ’s godmother, where we stayed for the night. We had mentioned a few months ago that we would love to learn how to make turons at some point, so RJ bought ingredients and Marian taught us to make the them.

Making turon:

Turon 1

Turon 2

Turon 3

We had a great time preparing them and the turons turned out well. For dinner RJ and Noel prepared crablets and tawili—mini crabs and teeny fish. We ate the entire crab, yes the entire crablet, claw and all. This might be the food with the most bragging rights for being adventurous that we’ve had here so far. Both the crablets and tawilis taste like some weird super crunchy and salty thing…

The next morning we had a nice walk through South Ridge Estates, the housing division of RJ’s godmother’s home. We passed by some enormous houses, almost all of which are only vacation homes. We packed up and checked out Ferdinand Marcos’ unfinished mansion at People’s Park in the Sky, which was similar to our experience at Victoria Peak in Hong Kong with its beautiful view completely blocked by dense fog. (This mansion is part of the legacy Marcos was able to build because of his high ranking on this list. ) They took us to a fast food brunch at Chic-Boy along the ridge, which had great views of Lake Taal, and by Rowena’s bakery for some coconut tarts before we headed back to Manila.

Ateneo is closed until January 7 and we’re planning on a quiet week of work at Coffee Bean on Katipunan until campus reopens.