The Best Things to Eat in Masbate

I know Mom gets stressed trying to figure out how to feed me the few times I accompany her home to Placer. In Masbate, just like any other province in the Philippines, it’s never a feast without slaughtering something. Baboy (pig), kambing (goat), or baka (cow) are usually the centerpiece to any self-respecting spread. It isn’t really my type of thing.

Let this not be another post trying to explain my irregular eating habits. As long as you have seafood on the menu, I’m good. And if you haven’t yet heard, Masbate’s the best place to be for the freshest sea-anything!

My first meal in Placer and already it’s my favorite. Incidentally, I was first introduced to kilawin (a Filipino version of ceviche) at a previous trip here.

Kilawin in nine photos:

Fresh-from-the-water dilis (long-jawed anchovy):

Deboned and minus guts:

Chop some ginger, add some chopped red onion:

Wash dilis in vinegar, drain and squeeze out excess vinegar:

Add calamansi (use a strainer to keep tiny seeds from falling into the bowl), mix ingredients together:

Add chopped chili like siling labuyo (bird’s eye chili) if you want it spicy:

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On that same first meal, fresh shrimp and fresh squid:

Fry separately and toss in with chopped spring onion, garlic, and salt and pepper:

Yummy!

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I pretty much try everything…

Scallops:

Crab:

Some kind of shellfish:

Tanigue and lobster:

Including snail kilawin. But only because I wasn’t told until it was too late. No wonder I thought it had a weird, extra-chewy texture.

Snail kilawin and the shells they came in

I try the sea urchin too, even if they look so much better fixed up in the Japanese restaurant:

And some seaweed, just because it’s the thing to do there:

More kilawin? Here’s the tanigue version with salted egg!

Check out my friend’s version here on her blog, Writing with My Mouth Full. Yumyumyum!

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