I always liked the movie, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, but I can assure you that this “Breakfast at the Hacienda” was far, far more memorable. :) After spending an hour at the Murcia market, we drove on towards the fertile lands nearer Mt. Kanlaon. We turned off the main road and made our way through sugar cane fields, santol and guava orchards, rice fields, etc. to a resthouse in the center of a 500 hectare hacienda that belonged to the M family. Yes, M is a common first letter for folks from this part of Negros (back to the “pick from a list of names” times I suppose). At any rate, set out on tables out back in a verdant garden with a spectacular view of the hacienda and the mountains in the distance, was a FABULOUS breakfast unlike any I have recently enjoyed. I would coin the phrase “bucolic chic” for our setting, but “Breakfast at the Hacienda” really expresses it much better. And this wasn’t about a flashy, fancy meal. Just a hearty, delicious, satisfying, filling array of local delicacies… ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL!
Grilling over coals on the ground were two chickens, fragrant with lemongrass and other spices…
… nearby several whole bisugo were also being grilled and laid on freshly harvested banana leaves…
Once the chickens were laid out on the buffet, they looked even more appetizing than on the spit.
A first for me, a platter of fried eel or “sili” that was simply fantastic. Meaty, flaky and of course fried, this freshwater eel (probably with quite a girth judging from the pieces) was one of my favorite dishes from the breakfast. There were also platter of takway, adobong pusit, a puso salad with mayonnaise…
A superbly done platter of calo-calo or fried garlic rice.
A platter of native rice cakes and delicacies.
A rice cake topped with a sinful coconut and sugar relish.
And finally, fantastic guavas picked from the farm’s own orchards. Washed and sliced, these were the BEST guavas I have had in years. Crisp and sweet, these were the ideal way to clear one’s palate after such a sumptuous breakfast. Many, many thanks to our host, Tita V for a wonderful tour and spectacular breakfast!
55 Responses
hello Marketman, sili are fat freshwater eels found in the rivers of Murcia. This is the favorite of my lolo, together with “apan” or locusts.
I last had sili last summer and I had the gruesome task of killing that slithering creature before turning it into paksiw with gata and frying some. I love sili… not silly at all!
Marketman, you’re photos are torture for a craving and pregnant reader like me!!! I wonder where I can get to eat something like this quick :-(
referring to the 3rd to the last photo: the rectangle shaped (on the left side of the pix) rice cake is called suman-latik while the one on the right is called ibos.
suman is best paired with the latik or that sweetened coconut + brown sugar syrup. while ibos is best paired with raw muscovado.
yum! i miss my Sunday breakfast after mass. we usually buy these right outside the church grounds.
hope you enjoyed your negros vacation! :-D
Ahhhh!!!! I will exchange this breakfast on any hotel buffet breakfast anytime of the day. This is one thing I really miss a lot. Heavenly yet down to earth.
Lee, arrgh, they are freshwater? I was told salt. Hmm, will edit soon. Thank you for pointing that out!
Hi Marketman if they are sili then my Murcia infused genes tells me they are frehswater. Hmmm… sili and Chili’s?
I’ll look for the photos I took of the live fat sili sold to us moments before we cooked it.
Wow Ibos…
Correct me if I’m wrong but I think those eels are what we call “ubod” in Negros. You should’ve tasted the inasal nga ubod, MM. In our place in Hinigaran, that was one of the best tasting and best selling spicy inasal aside from chicken inasal of course. Be carefoul though because the “ubod” has lots of “tinik” which might scratch your throat when accidentally swallowed.
MM, I’m sure this is BRUNCH hehehe. The Weet-Bix this morning is NOTHING compared to your delicious, fancy, hearty and tulo laway display.
The suman makes my heart bleed.
I don’t care what other people call them…that pictures makes me hungry.
hi chinchai. the sili has few bones, the one with lots of bones are called “nipa-nipa.”
Ayayay my weakness “roast chicken straight from the grill” Love it always.
Imagine me right here in Dunedin, New Zealand. Instead of watching the fjords, Im looking at marketmanila.com’s roast chicken.
those are the food that you need to have a manicure so that if you are caught eating with your hands, you are sosyal. that’s a nice picnic spread.
suman latik. *yum*
Inid bala “kasili” ang tawag diyan? I’m scared of that fish. Parang nanlilisik ang mga mata. Parang ahas. Yaiks!
Groan…groan..delicious food pics…torture for us who salivate….
that’s what a breakfast should be. its been a looong time since ive had takway. i love its slimy texture.
With Margarita, “M” is definitely Montilla.
Mangaranon, close but not quite. :)
M for Montelibano? :-)
Rhea, maybe, maybe not… :)
visited ilocano friends once, had the good luck to be served, for lunch, fresh water eel, with fat an inch thick, salted and dried. fried in oil, it tasted just like bacon.
Ok let me take a shot. M for Medina
namit namit guid!
Montinola
Jun b, Medina’s are not from Negros. All of the previous names are Ilonggo names including Montinola’s are typical prominent names in Negros but all originating from Iloilo. Medina, maybe Arayat pa.
I just made a Filipino breakfast sans daing. I was just asking my friend what breakfast would you fancy, Greek, Swiss, English…. he said what about breakfast of your Filipino roots….
Kalami sa suman….
I have to say that my favorite of all the pictures and food is the garlic rice. Parang i can eat the whole bandehado!
wow the rice cakes looks yummy… and i feel salivating with the guava.
Only Filipinos eat such a hearty breakfast. Everything looks so good. I work odd hours and we have our lunch break at 7:30 am. My co workers all bring bread, eggs, cereal, etc…(something you would really eat for breakfast) for lunch break. Then when I bring in a full meal, they look at me and ask, how could you be eating all that food this early. I say, it’s easy, cause it’s soo good.
MM, As much as I enjoyed staring at your voluptuous pictures, my heart aches with the thought of the majority who can’t put a pot of rice on their table.
I am sitting here in the office salivating at the takway but most of all the grilled bisugo reminds me of my childhood..I like to eat it with raw native egg over very very hot rice and sinamak! lucky salmonella was not common during those days! btw, I have been an avid reader of your blog. Really love your Negros entries…reminds me why I keep going back home.
How dumb of me. Of course, Murcia is MATTI; Montilla is Isabela. Mike Arroyo’s grandmother is Montilla and their hacienda is in Isabela.
My goodness, marketman, those rice cakes really make me drool. Though we have in the Filipino stores, somehow, it doesn’t taste as good as the ones we have there.
The breakfast looks really heavy! Even the dessert, carbo-loading to the max :) the fried eels are also a specialty in pangasinan, not certain if I tasted it in Bolinao or in Lingayen. And picking up from one of the comments, they can be matinik so am wondering if this is also what you observed, MM? and also its can be fatty as well, like a long bangus belly yummmy diba! thanks again for sharing your adventures, really good stuff…
now that’s my kind of breakfast! i always eat a hearty breakfast because it makes me feel good. What follows is just coffee or tea at lunchtime. i only have a light dinner because the heavy breakfast still doesn’t make me feel really super hungry.
Oh MY….BAYABAS! I miss eating guavas directly from the tree…nostalgia, thy name is MarketMan…
That my man is real breakfast, looks like lunch for other people but we Filipinos do it in a very big way. Here in the states some people are surprised that we even eat rice at breakfast and at lunch and finally dinner. They have not seen what real breakfast is. Breakfast is really breaking your fast- from dinner, your sleeping time at night and finally when you wake up and break your fast.Oh well, we love food.
..they say if one wants to eat well and not gain a lot of weight, one has to eat like a king for breakfast, and dine like a pauper for dinner….problem is, with food like those, i’d be gorging!!!
tatay used to make lamayo with the sili—marinate the sili fillets, like daing, and sun-dry them like tapa…when he broils them, you get flash-fire from the fat! yum!
Oh my. That grilled fish looks soooo good!
waaah the food makes me wanna go home! or at least eat something but it’s 240am here in dubai….
When I saw the chicken and fish being grilled, I thought… that’s breakfast??? I’ll be happy to eat that for lunch and dinner as well! The garlic rice looks perfect! Everything looks so yummy!
Wow! What a meal.. any chance you could replicate that coconut relish?;-)
Was your breakfast accompanied by Barako or Alamid coffee?
I think that a hearty breakfast, almusal, or agahan is so entrenched in our culture that it almost characterizes us Filipinos. We’ve practically ‘invented’ the proper breakfast lifestyle. But alas, so unknown to non-Filipinos…
Great post!! Just reading them and looking at the pictures made me soooo hungry. I’m so gonna miss the Philipinnes when I go out of the country again! I’ll visit your site again to “torture” myself!!
Yeah … did you have this breakfast with Kapeng Barako??
is that Hacienda Binitin of the Montelibanos in Murcia? They have the crunchiest guava ever! i think those big lomboy that are sold here in Bacolod came from hacienda Binitin too.
Queen B, maybe that was brunch…..what a way to start a day!!
Wow, that is the breakfast I like, the best!
How about M for Montelibano?
Just reading your blogs and all the food featured are really, food from home which we miss so much. My niece and I are just looking at the pics and it brings good memories from the past she said she used to remember having a lady come to our gate in early sunday morning with suman latik and ibos for breakfast, Kbl, inasal, sinugba, kilawin, lechon we miss it so much, we are making a list of food to eat and restos to visit when we go home for a holiday this Sept. Thanks for the happy memories you bring tru your blog. Cheers
hmmm … this may be a bit late … but I’ll do a small analogy … Binitin is located before Murcia town … its actually along the Mansilingan / Murcia border … and that depends on where you’re standing … one side is Mansilingan (technically still part of Bacolod City) … and the other … the town of Murcia …
So …. if you did a little shopping and what-not in the Murcia market … you’d have to turn back towards Bacolod city … to go to Binitin …
Our land is adjacent to Binitin …. bordered by a river .. (I forgot the name .. jeez) … Back then, we would look for wayward golfballs in that river … Yep … Binitin also has a golfcourse.
And yes …. being a Manila boy now …. I share the same “miss that a lot” sentiments as well …. lucky me my wife is also a Negrense … and a good cook too … :D