Bintan's Lunch

"gosh, if I could cut my eating habit as infrequent as I do posting here in my food blog_ I would surely hit my weight goal". - just me again feeling apologetic for not updating this blog, haha.

Anyways, I just came home from another set of trips and those photos I took?, well I gotta start sharing them to you or they'll go add up to the bulk of piles still waiting to be blog.

In Indonesia, we availed a package tour of  North Bintan and as I promised there in my travel blog, in here would be the food post. I'm not sure if the lunch that came with the tour could already be a basis of the island's authentic cuisine, but for sure I had them all over Asia.

At Aneka Seafood, we were served  the following :

calamares with sweet & chili dipping sauce. The coating was nice and already hot and the squid was bursting with freshness. The dip thu' was a lot chilier than we usually have at home. So it's dipping a hot dish in a hot sauce.. wheeew.



kangkong. I'm not sure if it was with sambal, maybe. I'm not so familiar with sambal, but I heard_ there, they like to mix sambal in their kankong dishes. Again this is one hot dish.

fried fish. Don't ask me what fish please. I don't know, but it looks familiar like our local talakitok. Well, obviously, I was so unsure of the details of the dishes. No one near to us spoke English. Everytime, I tried to throw question to the server, he would just politely smile. . total silence followed.

Anyway, I like this fish dish with tasty garlicky toppings. Among the dishes, this was the only one normal, I mean in my personal "hot" standard.



That's all. Only 3 viands and rice.



Ofcourse, each of us enjoyed fresh coconut water in the shell. It was also a good match  to the hotness of the dishes.
If you want to see the place, jump here please.

Dampa : Tonya's

The lady on green  facing on your right _ Tess  last visited P.I. six years ago. So when Tess saw my blog post about Dampa with another bff Lulu who's N.Y. based ( see that post here and here ) , this Sydney based bff called us up right away for a request of a Dampa lunch for her already then scheduled visit with her family.



So upon arrival, after few hours warming in their hotel, off we went for a lunch in Dampa, Macapagal.






Ofcourse, our Dampa expert bff couple hosted the lunch. Straight from our hometown, we met them at the place. Along with the seafoods they gathered at the wet market of the place, were freshly catched fishes they brought along from our  province.

This is one of those. So you could also do that. Seafoods are not meant to be exclusively bought from the Dampa market. Anyway, restos cooking charge here is per kilo and don't mind where the sea food come from.



Other fish was cooked as sinigang sa miso ( a filipino soup based dish).

Crabs were cooked two ways_ sweet chili crabs and the resto's own crab special.

Prawns were sweetly buttered.

Grilled stuffed squid.

Always present on the table_ green mango-bagoong salad.






The Pinoy -Aussie family obviously missed our pinoy seafood and was excited to partake on the table feast.

The eldest  shown a lot of love to our pinoy dishes.

The younger siblings were not so aware yet of what was happening on the table and were happy about their rice bowl with nothing on it but the sinigang soup.

I have to mention thu' that this resto _ Tonya's had one of the best cooking I had tried in the area. Expert bff/host agreed and added that this is one of the pioneer in Dampa cooking way back from the first Dampa in Baclaran.



We were all happy tummies. Left overs were inevitable thu'. Always, everytime we eat at Dampa, there would always be half full left.



So we had them on a home dinner before we went out for a bar. hahaha!!! Happiness with best friends!!!

Claire de la Fuente's, Dampa Macapagal

Obviously, our bbf (balikbayan friend) Lou couldn't get enough of our local Dampa, Macapagal, cos she asked again for another round of seafood dinner there when we were at the area 3 days ago. That was after only about 5 days from her first Dampa lunch, to see click here. Don't blame her, she missed our local food and the local ambiance. Third of all, the place didn't exist yet when she was still based here.



So we tried another resto this time _ Claire de la Fuente's ( named after the owner who is a local singer slash business woman). It has alfresco area with stand-up comedians.

Once again Icor showed her wet marketing prowess. But I was not impressed as the first time I saw her doing it !, cos she was just repeating the act ! hahaha! Same everything ! Look at the table, we got exactly the same menu ! :

salmon belly-sinigang sa miso

calamares

salmon steak

prawns tempura

prawns in buttered sauce

Singaporean crabs

green mango salad with shrimp paste (bagoong)

crabs in sweet chili sauce

Our guest bff Lou couldn't careless if the table offered the same for the nth times, she sure did love our seafood. Happiness !

Dampa. Macapagal

Lately, I don't get to eat at Dampa, Macapagal as I used to when I was working and Friday dinners with office mates usually ended there for the benefit of our ranting stomachs and wallets too. For those few who don't know about the place, it's an eating lot with wet market on the side. You buy your fresh seafood from the market, then bring your raw goodies to your choice of resto and have them cooked per your style. Cooking fee charges per kilo.
Dampa is good for big group. Prices of seafood are reasonable and you get to maximize the number of plates of dishes on the table. For instance, if you buy a kilo of salmon fish, you could ask to cook it half steak and the other half as a soup (sinigang).

icor,lulu,me & raisa

Lulu, a friend who is NY based is in Manila for a short visit. She missed Filipino dishes so much and Icor suggested a lunch in Dampa.


I went with Icor to the market and was amazed how well she managed the wet marketing . Considering that her household is full of maids and this senora, is admittedly zero knowledge in the kitchen department, she was quite a pro in Dampa. That's because she said she frequent the place with her huge clan.

The fresh sea foods ended up in our table with one hue_ orange ! I don't like a table sans a fresh color of green which to me is an implication of healthy vegetable. Anyway, that was just me, the rest of table was happy with the dishes so I was happy too.

shrimps- fried & in sweet-chili sauce

crabs, singaporean and in sweet chili sauce

junjun & cris

salmon, siniang sa miso & steak

salted & peppered squid

The lunch was full of burping moments !