The province of Antique is not really known for its cuisine. I haven’t seen that many restaurants during our Manggad Kang Antique Heritage Tour, our meals usually hosted by Flord Calawag of Tibiao Fish Spa. But we did get to eat on some of the local eateries in the province once in a while. Emphasis on the word eatery. This is quite understandable since Antique’s tourism is still in its relative state of infancy.

Here are some of the food places we got to try while in Antique.

►CHECK OUT: ANTIQUE TRAVEL GUIDE

 

 

 

FLORING’S CARINDERIA

ADDRESS: ILAURES JUNCTION, BRGY. ILAURES, BUGASONG, ANTIQUE | CONTACT NUMBER: +63 (927) 542-1917 | GPS MAP: 11.009944, 122.049778

---

Located in the town of Bugasong, Floring’s Carinderia is basically a humble, bare hollow blocks and cogon hut that sits right beside the highway amongst farm fields. It look like your ordinary carinderia, but their dishes blew us away. We ate an early dinner here during the second day of our tour.

Floring’s specialty is native chicken adobo. It took a while for our orders to arrive as they were prepared as we ordered. What differentiates their adobo from all the adobo dishes out there? Well, it is made from native free-range chickens and fused with atsuete and siling labuyo. These are said to be much tastier than poultry-farm ones.

And upon serving, we can indeed testify that it is more flavorful. As further proof, Floring’s consumes up to forty native chickens in a single day for its patrons. It’s not dubbed as the house that adobo built for nothing.

Served with the native chicken adobo and rice is a plateful of atchara. Something you wouldn’t quite expect for an adobo combination, eh?

 

 

TIBIAO BAKERY

ADDRESS: D.L. BANDOJA ST., TIBIAO, ANTIQUE | CONTACT NUMBER: +63 (36) 653-0048 | GPS MAP: 11.288854, 122.036140

---

An institution in Antique, Tibiao Bakery is named after its home town in the province. It has been serving baked goods for Antiqueños for more than sixty years now and is so popular that it even has nine branches in Iloilo City, besides the two in Antique.

They bake all sorts of pastries, from teren-teren breads (named after train, since it resembles linked carriages), to mamon, biscocho, buttersticks, paborita, macapuno buns, ugoy-ugoy, and siopao.

We, of course, got to try everything. And me, being allergic to anything sweet, has to vote for their siopao buns as a favorite. That doesn’t mean their other stuff suck though, point in fact, everyone was raving about their biscocho biscuits, a delicacy more native to Iloilo than Antique.

 

 

VBOTS LUTONG BAHAY

ADDRESS: TIBIAO, ANTIQUE | GPS MAP: 11.282704,122.038367

---

Before going back to Iloilo City, we passed by Vbots Lutong Bahay for our final lunch in Antique. Similar to Floring’s Carinderia, it is also located on the main highway of the province with both its sides surrounded by lush rice fields.

As its name suggests, most of the dishes being served at Vbots’ are home-styled food every Filipinos are familiar with—but with a twist. Everything is cooked Kinaray-a style, from platefuls of carne frita (which looks like bistek), ginisang monggo with gata, kinilaw na labanos, nilagang baka and pata to adobong atay at balun-balunan.

I love their carne frita which was so tender and flavorful. I also adored their nilagang baka and pata. It was so spicy my nose came running after every sip! The kinilaw na labanos was really not for me, so was the balun-balunan (although my friends love it).