When you are on a tight budget and every piso counts in your daily allowance as a mere college student, the thought of preparing tasty but healthy meals on a regular basis may seem daunting. There will always be a time when you will ran out of selections and just patronize instant foods available in the sari-sari store near you leading you to fall into a mealtime rut, eating the same foods over and over particularly when you got a bunch of school requirements to accomplish. When you are stressed out, starving but with a tight budget, going to a carinderia near the university is probably the best idea.
Carinderia continues to play a great role towards provision of genuine Filipino dining experience. As a part of Filipino tradition, most carinderia owners are those who love to cook dishes for their family and this mentality of owners or cooks serve as an avenue for students to feel at home. Despite the fact that carinderia has an ambiance less formal than that of a high-class restaurant, it gives students an assurance that they get satisfied with mouth-watering taste at a very low price.
If you are a Marian, you have four choices where you could enter or go out from the university campus. Aside from the main gate, there are three more gates namely Gate 1, Gate 2, and Gate 3. For some, these gates are food haven for student-passersby because aside from the street-foods, carinderias make up the stretch of the streets to cater these students. Now, in this dish review, I will share my “Monday-Meal Experience” by choosing three of the most famous carinderias near each gate.
Breakfast in Gate One
Before I went to my first class, I visited gate 1 to have my first meal for the day and I ended up in front of an orange-gated-carinderia and asked for the best combination for a breakfast-budget-meal.
Pork barbeque and ginataang sitaw at kalabasa
Price: ₱ 30.00
Location: Jaraps Eatery, Ponce Street, District IV, Bayombong Nueva Vizcaya near SMU Gate 1
Whether served as merienda, the main dish, or pulutan, Pinoy pork barbeque is really a party stopper here in Jarap’s Eatery. Their barbeque’s secret is to marinate the pork into sweet and tender one for a couple of days. Every customer here, including me, agrees that this is one of Jarap’s top ulam combined with their ginataang sitaw at kalabasa that gives me a milky yet crunchy-like sensation on my palette. Also, they serve free egg soup to neutralize the sweetness and saltiness of my meal. Aside from this, Jarap’s has much more to offer with 20 varieties of choices from beef, pork and vegetable dishes infused with local and foreign flavors because they also have teriyakis, Korean curries and more!
Although the meals are superb, I guess the ventilation of the place is quite not that accommodating most specially during summer because the tables are only placed in their garage. Based on my experience, I suggest that “to-go” or “take-out” meals are a major YES here because they always add a little more to every serving and the price of their budget-meal is five pesos lesser than other carinderias.
Lunch in Gate Two
Right after my morning class which ended at 12:30 p.m., I promptly took my exit through Gate 2 and went to a carinderia at the ground floor of a four-storey building and asked for the best budget-meal combination for lunch.
Bopis and suam na mais
Price: ₱ 35.00
Location: Mika’s Panganan, Saquing Street, Don Mariano Marcos, Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya near Gate 2
Bopis is a piquant Philippine dish of pork or beef lungs and heart sauteed in tomatoes, chillies and onions. This dish with a Spanish origin is one of Mika’s Panganan’s best seller and the very first dish to run-out due to popular demand. Their bopis is not too spicy compared to the typical native bopis, but there is this enough kick just to tickle my taste buds. The earthy taste of the small-diced lungs and hearts brought me into a semi-exotic flavor destination.
The budget-meal involves suam na mais that gives me a clean and refreshing taste as if I am living a simple-barrio life in every spoonful. The simple taste of the white corn really compliments the unusual earthy taste of the bopis. Mika’s Panganan’s edge over the carinderias is the selection of viands, and most especially the excellent ventilation and ambience of the place. The carinderia is ideally located in a newly constructed building with high ceiling which makes students comfortable in a hot day like today.
Dinner in Gate Three
I do not usually take three meals a day but when I eat my dinner, I always make sure to have it before 6:00 in the evening as adviced by the health care article that I read. So before the clock strikes at 6, I run past Gate 3 in a very simple carinderia that in spite of its simplicity, it is always jam-packed so out of curiosity I went here and asked for the best combination for dinner.
Lechon paksiw and ginisang ampalaya
Price: ₱ 35:00
Location: Ela’s Snack House, Cabbarroguis Street, Don Mariano Marcos, Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya near Gate 3
Filipinos always have leftovers stack in the fridge after a party or occasion. Through this practice, families reinvent these leftovers into something more delicious. This kind of Filipino method led the invention of lechon paksiw wherein leftover lechon becomes more savory and tangy. But not in Ela’s Snack House, where they do not need party leftovers just to serve lechon paksiw. The said dish is one of their blockbuster dishes which is patronized by students, and also approved by the construction workers who are building the new Saint Mary’s University building near Gate 3. The festive taste of lechon plus the aromatic sauce really brings back my memories of happiness during family gatherings. In addition to that, the right amount of bitterness coming from the ginisang amplaya undeniably balances the merry taste of the lechon paksiw due to its natural bitter-smack on my palate. While eating here, I noticed that the main advantage of Ela’s Snack House is about its very maka-masa amount of serving. They do not really mind if they are already serving more than a cup of rice or if their dish serving is more than what I paid for. They have their own interpretation of 1-cup of rice by giving extra half-cup for free! I am sure all the rice lovers would truly love that.
Although the meals and servings are unusually generous, the ambiance and the eating area is not spacious enough which leaves you with no choice but to just bring home the food that you bought from their stall.
Carinderias and Pinoy.
There are many reasons why carinderias have become a major thing for Filipino people. For one, like in other parts of the world, Filipinos love to eat. We consider it not only as a means to survive but one of the pleasures of life as well. Such food establishments are indeed of great importance- for students, for an ordinary citizen, and for every Filipino in our country. As a student, I save a lot of money by eating in these establishments that serve cheap but decent food. Also, ordinary people treat carinderias as their cheap versions of fast food restaurants. Most importantly, it gives us a unique identity for it is part of our lifestyle as Filipinos. Without these humble establishments, life for us would have been very different.