Hello, Hive! Welcome to another Food Memories post where I remember the past through the food I've had. This post is now Part 7 of my Food Memories series and I plan to end it after reaching the 10th part. I'm running out of food memories to go back to. But I'm glad that I have something to look back to and read whenever I want to reminisce by going through pictures of food.
The foods I'll be showcasing in this post are from a recent trip, a few months back. I, together with my colleagues from the University, went to Bantayan Island. It's one of the most popular tourist destinations in Cebu. My second post in Hive is about my past travels to the island but I know I'll be writing several more blogs about Bantayan. For now, enjoy the food blowouts that we had at the island.
WELCOME LUNCH
June 14, 2021
Bantayan Island is located in the northern part of Cebu. You can take a bus and ride a ferry to get there. I made the itinerary for this trip and I planned it so that we'd arrive at the island around noon.
Here's the entire gang. We're all researchers at the University. I was still sporting my long hair then. Do you see any familiar faces in the photo?
We did arrive at lunchtime and I suggested we had our lunch at MJ Square in Santa Fe. We chose the restaurant called Chef Panyang.
We ordered a platter of pancit, a Filipino noodle dish. We were shocked at how large the serving was. I was happy with it because I was already starting.
After seeing the size of the first dish, we were worried we ordered too much food. The grilled pork was served and the serving size was okay. It was enough for everyone. What impressed me about the dish was the garnish. There were tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions.
Our research project leader was on a vegetarian diet for health reasons. He ordered a salad but he found out that it had ham on it. He just set those aside and I think I asked for some of it.
When ordering for a group, if you have pork, you got to have chicken as well. We ordered their fried chicken and honestly, it was not impressive. The parts were small and I thought my mother's fried chicken was superior to it.
Soup. You can't forget the soup! We decided to have pork sinigang, another famous Filipino dish with a distinct sour taste.
We were in for a feast! Our first meal was a blowout. Someone ordered Gyros and naturally, it was set aside because we had a lot of food that was best paired with rice.
Six people shared this food and we couldn't finish it! We brought with us what was left. The Gyros was untouched and it later went bad because no one wanted to eat it right away.
Our lunch fueled us as we continued with our activities for the rest of the afternoon. We went to the popular tourist sites around the island. I'll write about it in a future travel blog.
Here's the gang taking a photo with the famous Camp Sawi sign.
LAST SUPPER
June 15, 2021
Our trip was 3 days and 2 nights. On our 2nd day, we went island hopping and on our last night, we had our dinner at Cou Cou Bar Hotel & Restaurant. The place had a welcoming and well-lit interior. Check out the photos of the place below.
The entrance to the restarant.
They had lovely outdoor seating but it wasn't enough for the group.
They also had a bar but we decided to buy our drinks outside and enjoy them at the Airbnb we were staying.
We ordered pinakbet, another Filipino classic. It's made from mixed vegetables sautéed with pork or shrimp. Their pinakbet did not look so inviting but I knew it would taste good because it had shrimp paste or hipon.
We ordered their chicken curry as part of our mains. We also had calamares which is a go-to appetizer dish when eating at a Filipino restaurant.
[Apologies for the blurry pic, I was eager to eat right away.]
We ordered another soup. I think it was chicken tinola. For our pork dish, we had lechon kawali. It was another feast!
I didn't take pictures but we also ordered pizza from the restaurant. We all agreed to take it home since we were very full already.
Before heading to our accommodations, we bought ice cream and some alcoholic drinks. It was such a fun night!
SEAFOOD FEAST
June 16, 2021
For our last day, we had our lunch at Tiki Bar Bantayan. We made the most of our remaining time on the island by enjoying the beach at Santa Fe. The restaurant was just walking distance from the beach. I remember it was so hot that day. We went inside the restaurant and enjoyed the cool shade. We ordered their Seafood Platter.
It took a while before our order was served and after we saw the food, we immediately knew why. The platter was overflowing with seafood! It looks small in the pictures but it's almost the size of three plates.
It had clams, calamares, crabs, fish, shrimp, shells, lobster, and of course, rice. Everyone had their fill and the rice ran out before the seafood. We slowly devoured what was left.
This was the aftermath of our lunch. I was so full and so thankful that I'm not allergic to seafood. You can see 
Before going home, we stopped by at their market and bought some of their famous buwad or dried fish. There was a lot to choose from but I decided to get the danggit or spine foot.
By this time, we were all tired and very eager to go home. We took the next ferry going back to the main island of Cebu. Look at us. We look beat!
And that's it! I didn't think I could write a whole post about just the food from a recent trip. How about you? Is food a major part of your travels as well? Eating food is as much of an experience as traveling.
Being a content creator stretches your mind to what you can come up with from your own experiences. I have to thank Hive for that. I know I wouldn't be producing these types of content if I continued blogging in Medium.
I'm still scouring my memories and gallery for the next Food Memories post. Stay tuned for it. See you in the next post. Cheers!
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