Chopsuey Rice: Road Trip to Vigan City.

Road Trip to Vigan City.

| Posted in Baluarte, Cafe Leona, Cafe Uno, food, Ilocos, Ilocos Sur, pictures, Sinanglaw, Vigan, Vigan City | Posted on 7/06/2010 01:41:00 AM

On a lazy Sunday morning a friend asked me if I want to join for a road trip to Vigan that same day. I hesitated at first for it’s going to interfere with my pending tasks at hand. But I changed my mind and grab an extra set of clothes, money and some things I need for the trip.

A group of four, we started the travel by car at around 10:00 PM. The road is fine, just a few bumps from here and there but it’s smooth most of the way. We even took a wrong turn and was in Benguet for a short period of time. But that’s what road trips are, some bloopers and wrong turns. I slept most of the trip, just woke up just to blurt out some stupid funny remarks. We stop occasionally for change of driver and a gas refill. There’s no stopping for food as the car is loaded with snacks and drinks. The travel to Vigan just took 6 hours, including the wrong turn to Benguet.

Wrong turn to Benguet

At 4:00 AM, we are already in the heart of Vigan City, the Plaza. We rest for some time. Watch the early joggers pass by and just enjoy the silence and beauty of the place. And then we got hungry. All the major food establishments are closed. We asked the people at the Inn besides the church if they serve breakfast but they told us that they serve breakfast at 6:00 AM. So we waited, strolled and take pictures to waste the time.

We rushed back to the Inn at 6:00 AM to satisfy our hunger. We were presented with 3 choices of breakfast, tocino, danggit or Ilocos longganisa. We decided to try the Ilocos longganisa since we are in Ilocos.

After breakfast I decided to try skateboarding at the plaza. There are 2 pipes and 2 fun boxes which I assumed from the local skaters of Vigan City. The place is skateable and nice. It’s around 6:45 that time so I have the freedom of skating all over the place.

My companions got tired and decided to sleep in the car. We slept for like more than 2 hours and decided to go to Baluarte Zoo of Chavit Singson. We enjoyed the scenery, the animals and most of all a seller of local kakanin there told us where the best place to eat in Vigan is. The stranger advised us to try Cafe Uno near Grandpa’s Inn. We decided to head to Cafe Uno for lunch.

Cafe Uno is located at #1 Bonifacio St. Corner Quirino Blvd., Vigan City, Ilocos Sur. It is a small coffee shop in Grandpa’s Inn. The place is great, with nice people hanging around. We asked the attendant what is their specialty and she advised us to try the Sinanglaw and Bagnet. We followed her advice and tried crispy sisig too. The food is great. The Sinanglaw is now my number one favourite soup in the world. The Bagnet is Crispy sisig are great too. We hang in there for about an hour and make use of the washroom there to wash clean ourselves. We asked the people there where is the great place to eat merienda and they told us to try the Plaza.

After the great experience at Cafe Uno, we head out to Burgos Museum. But the museum is close that time so we decided to just sleep and wait in the car. It’s too hot in Vigan at day. At 3:00 we get out of the car, roam around the now busy Plaza. There are students, skateboarders ad children around the place. We tried looking for a nice place to eat there. We settled at one of the stalls there and ordered special empanada. The empanada tastes good and different from the empanada found in Manila. A piece of special empanada Ilocos style is worth 30 PhP. It is crunchy, big and there’s egg in it.

After the merienda we roam the streets of Vigan. We took pictures, look at souvenir items and admire the old Spanish Era houses that are preserved and still intact.

After that we stayed again inside the car to wait till 7:00 PM so we can eat dinner and head back home to Manila. We ate at Cafe Leona. Cafe Leona is just near the Plaza. Their menu is filled with different foods and drinks. We had a hard time choosing what to eat but settled to try Pinakbet, Half Chicken, Sinigang Malaga, Calamares and Morcon for dinner. It is more expensive to eat at Cafe Leona than Cafe Uno and is more complicated since the menu is full of entries. I still like the Sinanglaw of Cafe Uno.