San Andres Market, Malate
Wed 26 Jan 2005
When you ask locals where to buy the best fruit, everyone and their mother-in-law(s) points to the San Andres Market. All of the fruit vendors are street side in this market and their colorful displays of local and imported fruit are rather eye-catching. 
At night, the lights, color and bustle do well to tempt passerby to stop and buy a kilo of something. But personally, despite the frequent mention, I have to give this market a lukewarm review. I was not impressed. My hunch is it is more tourist trap than serious market.
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Some people will think this is like doing an entry on steamed rice but I cannot ignore the simple pleasure of sipping a glass of cold coconut water with chunks of young coconut meat that has sunk to the bottom of the glass. For those lucky enough to have a coconut tree in their backyard, this treat can cost far less than a can of Diet Coke. While this may seem plebian, I think it is a sublime drink. When was the last time you had a fresh coconut???
In the process of catching, sorting, packing, storing and transporting alimango, their claws often fall off or are ripped off by accident. In the wild, these claws can grow back over time. Severed claws make great appetizer material without the hassle of cleaning the whole crab. These brilliant claw specimens were discovered at a seafood stall at AANI FTI Saturday market in Taguig but it turns out they are typically sold wherever there is a large turnover of alimango crabs.
They have medium to firm textured meat with a delicate sweet flavor that I find absolutely delicious. They have much thicker shells than the blue or orange shelled crabs that seem to have more delicate meat. They can be prepared steamed with lots of old bay seasoning, or steamed plain and served with lemon butter, stir-fried with garlic and oil, cooked with chili and tomatoes, fried into crab cakes, etc.
Mouthwatering, tart and pulpy, sinigang broth made the old-fashioned way is far superior to the packaged cubes that have become the mainstay of the busy and/or lazy metro cook. Living abroad for many years, I too, became accustomed to using the sinigang instant cubes or concentrates and happily wallowed in mediocrity. A couple of years ago I rediscovered how easy and how bloody good the original way of making sampaloc sinigang broth really is. There is no substitute for the near electric shock of real acid compared with the chemical equivalent hidden in those little foil packets.
Run out to the markets and load up! Local berries started appearing just before Christmas but in the past few days a berry flood has begun. This should peak over the next couple of weeks then they will pretty much dry up for the rest of the year unless you venture to Baguio to get them.
It always fascinates me what locals like to sink their teeth into. Imagine my surprise after two hours in the trenches with my wife and a friend at the super packed ladies market in Mongkok when at the end of the street, as you emerge from the market you turn to one side and are greeted by this terrific display of cooked seafood.
Tamarindus Indica is believed to have originated in Africa but is also considered native to India. Enjoyed both in its unripened and ripened form, tamarind figures notably in the cuisines from India to Thailand and Southeast Asia. A scraggly, hardy tree of the Leguminosae family, it thrives throughout the Philippines. It does well in windswept and coastal areas, resistant to droughts, and is often found in backyard gardens.