Just outside the Smart Araneta Coliseum and Gateway Mall, a parking lot was transformed into a weekend food market called Flavors, open until three in the morning |
Recently, the food and dining landscape of
Metro Manila has been changing, being enriched and diversified as people become
increasingly aware of good eating and food. It is also adapting to the changing
lifestyles of people. There are now dining places that cater to those who are
on-the-go, to the budget-conscious and those who work at night or sleep late. Urban
pockets dedicated to food and entertainment are springing up, particularly in
areas of heavy activity, where shopping malls and business operations converge.
An example is the Araneta Center, a 3.6-hectare commercial area at the northern
part of Metro Manila, in Cubao, Quezon City.
Owned and managed by the prominent Araneta
family, the Araneta Center was a popular destination especially during the
1970s and ‘80s with its Araneta Coliseum, a recognizable landmark that hosted
many big events and concerts; the Fiesta Carnival, an indoor theme park; and
shopping malls. However, it reached a point when it became close to become a
decaying urban center.
But the Araneta Center is bouncing back and
experiencing a renewal, poised to compete with other commercial centers in Metro
Manila. The domed arena, now Smart Araneta Coliseum, is undergoing
modernization that will include many amenities such as a food and entertainment
strip, an art museum and a 1,500-car parking facility. The Gateway Mall was
built to add to the existing malls. Condominiums and a hotel are beginning to
rise. There are also new dining outlets, many of them open late at night or
throughout the night to serve the new business process outsourcing offices.
A recent addition to the dining
scene of the Araneta Center is the Festival of Flavors, or simply Flavors, an
al-fresco, weekend food market that offers quick, no-frills, down-to-earth
foods from upstart and emerging entrepreneurs and home cooks.
The food market, open on Fridays,
Saturdays and Sundays from five in the afternoon to three in the morning, is
located at the Gateway Park, just outside the Smart Araneta Coliseum and
Gateway Mall.
According to Jasmin Abubakar, the Araneta
Center operations manager who is in charge of Flavors, it started out as an experiment,
a pet project of Araneta Group vice chair Judy Araneta-Roxas. Inspired by the
weekend markets that have become popular in Makati City, whose attractions
include the food, a similar venture but concentrating on food was put up during
the Christmas season of 2012, opening with the annual Christmas tree lighting
ceremony of Araneta Center. The outdoor food court was popular that it extended
operations until January the following year.
It was decided that the food market
will be a permanent feature of the area. A parking area¸ about 1,700 square
kilometers, was developed and spruced up. Some trees were planted, festooned
with lights. Steel benches and tables were set up. The tents of the tenants
were made uniform. Flavors was opened on May 31. Additionally, a small stage
was installed at a corner to provide entertainment, making the place suitable
to socializing and unwinding. According to Zyra Zuniga, marketing officer of
Flavors, they choose up-and-coming bands to perform. The featured musical performances
are from seven to 10 in the evening. Secondary performances after that dish out
easy listening music. Aside from that, there are other activities during the
daytime such as food demos by student-chefs.
Thus, Flavors is a venue to
get-together, unwind and be entertained over food. It is like a mall food court
but set outdoors and with entertainment, or Singapore’s food centers but the
stalls here are makeshift. There are 26 to 30 tenant stalls in Flavors, about 50
percent are unique to the market, said Abubakar. And vendors, who pay a rental
fee of about P25,000 a month, can vary monthly.
Young professionals and occasionally
expats and concert goers coming from Smart Araneta Coliseum can be seen at
Flavors, but the regular patrons are the BPO employees, who work throughout the
night in the area. The food items are kept affordable—from low to mid price.
Noticeably, Flavors offers Filipino
street food especially the grilled and fried items. Philippine street food can
be limited compared to its Asian neighbours. Grilled foods are popular such as
the pork barbecue, isaw (chicken
intestines), pork intestines, chicken gizzard, adidas (chicken feet) and betamax
(curdled chicken blood cut into squares and grilled with skewers). There are
novel things to urbanites such as skewered and grilled cow’s eyes. Popular
fried foods include the orange-colored tokneneng
or kwek-kwek (battered quail eggs), found
especially at the Eggchock and All About Eggs stalls. Also available are fried tawilis (freshwater sardine, which can
only be caught in Taal Lake of Batangas) and soft-shell crablets. There are
also balut, the popular Filipino
night-time snack of cooked duck embryo still in its egg, and the unfertilized duck
egg called balut penoy.
There is a profusion of Philippines street food including isaw, tokeneneng and adidas. |
There is a profusion of these that
they inundate what variety there is in the small food market, but Araneta
Center officials said they are trying to keep the offerings diverse. Yes, there
are other foods at Flavors such as barbecued items at Amang’s Grill and Del
Barro’s Grill; sisig at Chef Babs
Sisig and More; the once popular shawarma at Mister Bahba’s Shawarma; buffalo
wings and other bar chows at B. Wings; and even Chicago deep dish pizza.
Although there is Lyn Bibingka and Puto Bumbong,
which serves the rice cakes and tubular sticky rice snack popular during
Christmas season, there is a dearth of kakanin,
Filipino sweets usually made from rice, whose color and variety can be very vibrant
arrayed on a table.
If you’re tired of the isaw and the adidas, they have Empanada Especiale and Siomai House, a relatively
recognizable and established brand. There are Siomai House stalls at many MRT
stations, whose dim sums are not particularly special but cheap and readily
available. The empanadas are more satisfying, which was formerly branded as
Empanada Royale with stalls in several malls. Now rebranded as Empanada
Especiale, the freshly-fried empanadas, which sell at P20 a piece, have four
fillings—pork, tuna, chicken and ham and cheese. The last two are the
bestselling varieties.
An array of grilled street food at Isaw Juan Ko stall, tended by a hunky vendor |
For those wanting a full meal, there
are several stalls that sell rice with wide selections of ulam. The popular Filipino breakfast combo, the tapsilog and its varieties, is offered
at Audea’s Tapa Pa!, operated by two very young and handsome entrepreneurs—Greg
Yu, a 19-year-old legal management student, and Aaron Audea, 21-year-old
management student, from the Ateneo de Manila University.
Audea has a small restaurant in Caloocan City called
Junior Frog, which features live musical performances. Their specialty is their
version of the silogs, the Filipino
combination plate of fried rice, fried eggs sunny-side-up and tapa, tocino or longganisa, and other ulams.
Most of them are from the recipes Audea’s grandmother and mother.
“I had them since I was a child, and they were
so good,” Audea claimed.
This gave him the idea of putting up a
restaurant. Aside from the classic tapsilog,
Audea’s Tapa Pa! also offers bistek
Tagalog, pork tapa, binagoongang baboy (pork
with fermented shrimp paste) and fish tausi.
Most of the items are priced at P70, a complete Filipino meal, served with rice
and eggs. They also have tapa
sandwich and tapa salad.
For more ulam, the nearby All About Fried has about 20 ulam dishes cooked by Maria Lourdes Oquendo, who prepares about
five kilos of each ulam each Flavors
night. The most popular are pork hamonado,
pork kinilaw, beef kaldereta, fried chicken skin and Bicol
Express. Yes, not really for the health-conscious, but they have rich
home-cooked flavors.
On the other hand, Crispy Seafood Republic
serves seafood dishes such as chili crab, prawns in oyster sauce and stuffed
squid as well as other ulams. Owner
Rizalde Dignadice hails from Roxas City, Capiz, which is known as the seafood
capital of the country, and swears by the freshness of the seafood. An order is
about P70 to P100 with rice, not bad for a taste of the sea.
The Araneta people promised there will a Fish
Moko stall, where people can choose the live seafood to be cooked their
preferred way, just like the paluto
system of the dampa restaurants
around Metro Manila, which Araneta Center already has at the Farmers’ Market.
For desserts, a nice lady sells
cakes. Chie Mejia has a small bake shop in Concepcion, Marikina, called M Cakes
and Pastries, which accepts orders of cakes and other pastries. Although owning
a travel agency, she expanded her horizons and studied baking under popular
chef Heny Sison. She started selling her items in 2005. With MChie Cakes and
Pastries, it is her first time to join a food market or bazaar. Popular items in
her little table are the Red Velvet Cake, the Decadent Chocolate Cake, the
mocha cake and the Banofee (banana-coffee) Cake. It also offers cupcakes and
brownies. Each slice of most of the cakes costs about P65.
At the other side, Coco Vida sells coconut
desserts and drinks. Owned by husband-and-wife Rene and Ellen Alejo, Coco Vida
actually has four branches in Metro Manila, and one in Malvar, Batangas,
Ellen’s hometown, where the couple has a coconut farm. They started with
farming coconuts in the 1980s then ventured into food in March 2012 using their
own coconuts as well as those from other coconut farms in Batangas. Their own
version of halo-halo is called
Coconut Mix, placed inside a young coconut shell. They also have buko pandan, sweet and creamy. Popular are
their shakes with flavors such as buko
(young coconut), avocado, watermelon, buko
coffee, buko lychee, guyabano (sour sop), watermelon, mango,
strawberry and melon. These provide an alternative to the milk teas, which
originated from Taiwan and had become popular in the country.
The Coco Vida stall has halo-halo and shakes. |
As the stalls can change very month, there are
more room for improvements. Hopefully, the food park will feature more regional
as well as international dishes; upgrade the stalls; and install more facilities
such as comfort rooms and water fountains.
Flavors can be crowded in the early
evening and noisy, the market that it is. As the numerous restaurants in the
area close down in the late evening, it becomes a beacon for the hungry and an
oasis to gather in.