Su-Tu-Kil, pronounced as [soo-too-kil] and not to be confused with ’shoot-to-kill’, is a cluster of seafood stalls and eateries in an area known as Mactan Shrine in Lapu-Lapu City (Cebu, Philippines) just minutes away by car or taxi from Mactan-Cebu International Airport.
Su-Tu-Kil — arguably the ultimate seafood experience in Cebu — is actually an acronym for three popular ways of enjoying seafood in the Philippines:
1) SUgba (grilled)
2) TUla (soup)
3) KILaw (raw fish soaked in vinegar mixed with tomatoes, ginger, onions and lemons, sometimes with radish; the vinegar’s acidity effectively ‘cooks’ the fish)
What makes the Su-Tu-Kil experience unique is the fact that you first need to buy the seafood from one of the stalls in the area…
…then you pick out one of the nearby restaurants to cook them for you. [NB: This restaurant sold its own seafood but you're under no obligation to buy from them.]
The choice of seafood is mind-boggling. Everything is so fresh, many of them are still alive. Everything smells like the sea; there’s no ‘fishy’ smell at all!
Take your pick from oysters and crabs…
…live lobsters…
…seaweed (the miniature grape-like things are a hoot to eat; the branchy stuff tends to be a bit more chewy)…
….as well as clams, prawns, scallops, and all sorts of exotic fish.
The best part is, of course, deciding how you want to have your seafood. Do you want your prawns grilled or cooked with butter and garlic? Perhaps the fish head can be made into soup, most of its flesh going into kilaw, then its tail grilled (just as we did!)? Name it, they’d do it for you! For a price, of course, which often translates to about half of what the seafood would cost you.
The place is not posh and can be crowded at night, but it’s breezy and offers a view of the clear waters of a mangrove swamp.
You might even find yourself serenaded with a harp…
…as you sink your teeth into all that scrumptious, deeeelicious, mouth-watering seafood.
We had our fill of dishes like scallops baked with cheese…
…fresh oysters with flesh so sweet, all I needed as condiment was the slightest squeeze of calamansi to go with it…
…and squid cooked in its ink. [Trivia: Filipinos eat squid with its ink. Malaysians don't!]
The Su-Tu-Kil experience — it’s like dying and finding yourself in seafood heaven!
Getting There:
As I said at the beginning of this post, find your way to this area called ‘Mactan Shrine’ in Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu. The place doesn’t look like much from the outside. The police station (on the left) is the main landmark to look out for.
Walk past the police station and you’ll find yourself in a small alley with shops selling souvenirs, selling everything from keychains made from mother-of-pearl to wooden carvings to t-shirts to decorative items made of capiz shells.
The stalls selling seafood are just a few steps away from the souvenir stalls. The restaurants are on both sides of the alley. You won’t miss the place because the moment you step out of your vehicle, people will be scrambling to take you to the restaurants (that hired them as informal ‘promoters’). If you go there for lunch like we did, you might even find yourself escorted with an umbrella!
Tags: Cebu, Philippines, seafood
When you travel as often as I do, especially to places like Jakarta which is almost just like a two-hour bus ride away, it’s very easy to start taking things for granted. Everything feels so drab and routine — online ticket purchase and check-in; luggage drop-off; chitchat with Malaysian Immigration officers on my long wait for permanent residence; the short train ride from the main terminal to the departure gate; last-minute phone calls and text messages before boarding the plane; takeoff; in-flight meal; duty-free sales (although I tend not to buy anything despite my habit of browsing the catalogue from cover to cover); landing; getting past Immigration; claiming luggage; holding my breath as I walk past Customs officers (they make me nervous somehow, even though I don’t carry any contraband with me!); exchanging money into the local currency; the drive to wherever I’m staying for that particular trip.
My last trip to Jakarta caught me by surprise though. It was the usual business trip with countless meetings and the occasional bouts with the infamous Jakarta traffic. But it was filled with small unexpected surprises.
First off, there was our flight to Jakarta on Malaysia Airlines (MAS), with a flight crew who were the perfect embodiment of the mesra (warm) service that won MAS accolades and awards many years in a row. I could actually feel the warmth and genuineness of their smiles. There was never the slightest hint of annoyance or boredom from them, despite passengers’ countless requests for drinks and mundane questions about the most trivial matters. They even ‘forced’ upon us a couple of satay in-flight meals ‘to go’…plus several bags of peanuts.
There was the lunch in a desa (country)-style Sundanese restaurant where I bonded with two Indonesian ladies with whom conversation used to be limited to purely business only. We ended up talking about everything else under the sun, stretching what was initially a ’short’ lunch discussion to a 3-hour friendly chat over gurame goreng, grilled prawns, red rice, the most delicious tempeh that my taste buds have ever encountered, grilled fish, sayur goreng, four types of sambal that ranged from ‘pedas dan manis’ (spicy and sweet) to ‘pedas sekali’ (VERY hot), too reluctant to say our goodbyes.
Then there was the unexpected trip to the Malaysian Embassy in Jakarta. After getting past Indonesian frontline staff who didn’t quite understand what we needed, the consular officer in charge ushered us into his office, listened to our predicament, immediately got his staff to prepare the document that we needed, all the while chatting with us as though we’re old friends who haven’t seen each other in a long time. And yeah, he mistook me for a Malaysian. Why am I not in the least bit surprised? ;)
Our return flight to KL on AirAsia was the icing on the cake. During in-flight sales, the staff kindly obliged in showing us the contents of the item that we had our eyes on. They didn’t seem to mind a bit when we decided not to buy the item in the end. So to reciprocate their patience, I bid them thanks as I was about to step off the plane upon our arrival in KL. Then I don’t know what came over me. Suddenly I just found myself blurting out “Boleh tengok tak?” (’May I take a look?’) as I gestured towards the still-closed cockpit door.
“Boleh (’Yes, you can’),” the steward said. “Nak ambik gambar pun boleh (You can even take pics)!”
And that’s how I ended up sitting on the pilot’s chair in the claustrophobic-inducing cockpit, grinning from ear to ear as my colleague took my pic.
I’m grateful. I’m in awe. I’ve rediscovered the magic in routine travel. It’s not the magic that most people get from discovering places previously never seen before. Rather, it was the kind of magic that comes from the most unexpected encounters with the most extraordinary ‘ordinary’ people, the inexplicable connections with perfect strangers, the littlest gestures that leave the deepest impressions on our souls — the best travel magic of them all.
Every time I go back to the Philippines, I always have a list of must-eat foods, i.e. all the Filipino foods that I’ve been missing the whole time I was away from the land of my birth. During my short stay in the Philippines, I hunted down those foods every time I had the chance, knowing that I may not be able to enjoy those delicacies again for some time.
One of the items in my list when I went to the Philippines early this month was the humble bibingka. The bibingka that I had in mind is the type of rice cake that’s made from — you guessed it! — rice flour, coconut milk, sugar and a leavening agent. The mixture is scooped into moulds that have been lined with banana leaves, then baked in a charcoal contraption that allows the bibingka to have the red-hot embers both below it and above it. It’s simple food really but I’ve always liked it. It brings back memories of going to the public market with my mother when I was just a little girl.
So there we were in a small city called Ozamiz. The MPV was maneuvering its way through the narrow street when I suddenly spotted a man walking at the side of the road, balancing a tray on his head. I craned my neck as we passed him then gave a little shriek when I caught a glimpse of what lay hidden under the coconut leaves that covered the tray — bibingka! We actually turned the MPV around just to track Bibingka Guy and buy a few pieces from him. Because yes, I was that desperate to have some bibingka and I didn’t want to risk missing my chance to tick it off my must-eat list.
It turns out that he was delivering his goods to a small sari-sari store (sundry shop) on the other side of the street.
See what I mean about the bibingka peeking from the banana leaves that covered them?
I took the above shot from behind the heavily tinted window of the MPV. Not quite happy with the quality of the photograph, I rolled down the window to get a clearer shot, making Bibingka Guy break out into a huge grin. He was absolutely tickled that I wanted to take a photo of him with his wares. He must have thought me nuts, but obliged all the same, seeing how I had a huge, “professional” camera.
Even the shopkeeper was very much amused. Too bad she looked away right at the moment when I pressed the shutter. And yes, those are bags of bread — sold by piece — hanging on top of her and pots of viands on the counter in front of her available for retail sale (read: based on the amount that one can afford to buy).
My verdict on the bibingka? Although it was nice, it wasn’t quite the taste that I was looking for. I wanted something less sweet and just a tad bit more spongey (i.e. having risen just a bit more). It was only a few days later in Davao City that I managed to sink my teeth into the bibingka that I specifically had in mind. But our roadside encounter with Bibingka Guy is something that I won’t be forgetting for a long time to come.
Tags: Philippines
Image by Lotharkort
On some days my mind is just totally devoid of blog ideas. And when I force myself to write, the words that come out have an empty ring to them. Flat. Stale. Unworthy of being read by other human eyes. I hit ‘Delete’ without regrets nor hesitation.
Some 26 draft blog posts await completion.
Hundreds — nay, thousands! — of photographs in my hard drive are begging to be sifted through to be written about.
I hope this drought season passes soon. For my soul longs to tell its tales once more.
Tags: blogging
My dearest Mama,
Today is your birthday and hardly the right occasion to talk about death. But that’s just what I’ll do — write about how much I’ll miss you once you leave this earth. Because I want you to know how much I love you. I want to let you know what I love about you. And I want you to know just how much I will miss you when you’re gone while I still have the chance to tell you.
My mother, who'll always be beautiful & ageless in my eyes... (special effects via Photofunia.com)
I mean, I just don’t get the point of those touching eulogies that people make at funerals. Sure, they’re full of wonderful memories. But what’s the point? Those eulogies are made to a person who’s no longer there to share in the memories. So I will tell you all these things while you’re still around to hear them.
I don’t remember specific details of our mother-daughter relationship as I was growing up as a child. But I do remember going everywhere with you — to the wet market, where I learned how to pick out the freshest fish (and have a bevy of children following me around for reasons that we never did find out); to the supermarket, where I learned the concept of comparing prices, managing a household budget, making ends meet; to the schools where you taught, where I’ve seen you mold young lives, making me wish I could be a teacher like you; to your friends’ homes, where you taught me etiquette and how to behave in a proper fashion; in the kitchen, where I learned to beat eggs with a manual eggbeater, fold egg whites into cake batter, make the yummiest leche flan in the world.
I am certain I also learned from you how to be strong even though I can’t pinpoint any single defining moment. But I know, without any doubt, that I possess this strength that I have now — as a person, as a woman, as a wife, as a mother — because of you.
But what I remember the most is how you became the bestest friend that I ever had. There I was — barely 16 and reeling from my first bitter taste of heartbreak. I opened up to you and found solace in you from all the pain that wrecked havoc with my fragile teenage heart. Oh what a relief it was to have someone who understood me and the sheer agony that I was going through. I remember thinking to myself, “Why didn’t I open up to my mother sooner?!“. That’s when you ceased being ‘merely’ my mother and became my best friend in the whole wide world.
Many years later, when my heart was broken for a second time and I felt as though the world was caving in all around me, you were there for me, as well.
As a matter of fact, I can’t remember a time when you weren’t there for me when I needed you. Like the day I was to give birth to MyEldest. DH was still on his flight back to Malaysia at that time and I felt so alone. Then you came and oh, what a relief it was for me to have you with me inside the delivery room. The sight of all that blood must have terrified you, given how you coached me and encouraged me from a certain distance only ;) But you were there for me, there’s no denying it. And you saw your first grandchild from the very moment he breathed his first gasp of earthly air.
You know how I always get annoyed every time you tell your friends all about me — my accomplishments, my website, my travels — right in front of me? It always embarrasses me. But you know what? I just realised how much it makes me happy. Because I know I make you proud. And I am happy I make you happy and make you proud. For who else will talk about all my accomplishments when you’re gone one day?
I love your laughter and your optimism (something that I, unfortunately, never managed to assimilate somehow), your spontaneity, your generous nature, your forgiving heart, your endless patience. I don’t think I’ve ever had the chance to tell you that. Well, I’m telling you now :)
When you’re gone, oh, how I’ll miss the little things that we always do together.
I’ll miss all those heart-to-heart talks in the darkness of my room, or in the warmth of your room, in the car while I’m driving, or over the kitchen sink.
I’ll miss our morning walks around the neighbourhood, when we talk about Makkah and your medical consultations and our private little jokes and everything else in between.
I’ll miss our ‘fashion consultations’, with me as the grouchy fashion consultant whose views you always consulted before buying a certain scarf or skirt or blouse.
I’ll miss our daily SMS exchange, oftentimes just to say ‘good morning’ or ask how the day went. You know how much I panic when I don’t hear from you within 24 hours ;)
I’ll miss our weekend dates over lunch or tea, a different restaurant every time — just you and me. Even the children understand that those trips are just for Lola and Mama and that they can’t tag along. Perhaps, one day, OnlyGirl and I will continue that tradition long after you’re gone.
I’ll miss our virtual tutorial sessions, sometimes over the phone, sometimes by SMS — be it about Excel or how to use certain features in your phone. (The only exception is the installation of your new monitor. It was RoundBoy who did that for you!)
I’ll miss trimming your hair. And dyeing it. And I hope and pray that I will never have to shave off your hair again ever. (I had to do it when your hair was starting to come off in clumps when you started chemotherapy last time, remember?)
When you’re gone, I’ll miss your hugs. I may be all grown up now, with children of my own but I’ll always be your little girl who needs your hugs.
When you’re gone, I’ll miss your reminders about my meals, my medicine, my children’s needs. I shouldn’t complain about your ‘nagging’ now because I know I’ll miss them when you’re gone.
When you’re gone, oh, I can’t tell you just how much I’ll miss the very best friend I’ve ever had, the best mother a child can ever hope for.
When you’re gone, I’ll miss you more than you’ll ever know, my Mama, so much more than all the words in the world in any language can possibly express.
Happy birthday, my dearest mother. Thank you for carrying me for 9 months in your womb. Thank you for giving birth to me. Thank you for caring for me and watching over me and raising me and teaching me. Thank you for always being there for me. Thank you for all the laughter and the memories.
Love always,
Mimi
————————
Post Script:
I worked on this blog post several months ago. I thought of posting it as a surprise to my mother on her birthday. But then I started thinking — what if something happened to my mum? What if she doesn’t get to see her next birthday? So on the 19th of February, I emailed her the final draft of this post, telling her that I wanted her to read it immediately, lest tomorrow comes too late. Never mind if it’s no longer a surprise for her birthday. What was more important was for her to know how much I love her and how much I’d miss her when it’s her time to leave this earth.
In an ironic twist of fate, my uncle (my mother’s only brother) died of a heart attack some two weeks ago. And his sudden demise made me realise more than ever just how important it is to let the most important people in our lives know how much they mean to us right here, right now. Because for all we know, tomorrow might never come at all.
