After a series of changing hands and facelifts since it opened its doors in 1983, the coffee shop of the Fort Ilocandia, the only 5-star hotel in the North, continues to serve discriminate lovers of food. I like its latest name the most — Cafe Ilocandia — what a better way to celebrate the Ilocano culture!

Ilocano specialties like dinakdakan (grilled pork/pig’s face, red onions and ginger, slathered with pig’s brain and Ilocano vinegar), kilawen a kalding (goat meat ceviche), swam, (goat innards with bile aka papaitan soup) utong and fish paste salad stood on equal footing with Asian favorites like sushi, siomai, tempura, pancit, lechon, Mongolian barbecue, and some not-quite-Asian dishes like stuffed porkloin with prune sauce and cheese-stuffed tomatoes in their most recent Asian Food Festival.

Looking like broth in the photo, the swam soup.

Nothing compares to crackling lechon (whole roast pig) skin with blood sauce.

My peewee Mongolian BBQ rice with shrimps, fish and chili bean paste.

Crêpe with sweet and succulent Philippine mangoes.

Photographed by Blauearth © Blauearth™ All Rights Reserved 2009-2012