Monday, March 17, 2008

Pan de Cebu

written on december 4, 2007

If you like bread, live in Cebu. You'll never run out of buns to dunk into your coffee, or pan de siosa to grill and smother with orange achuete oil.

Bakeries are readily available in street corners and in between, each of them looking exactly like its rivals. There goes the ubiquitous display window, directly facing the street, a full-frontal invitation to those across, as if it were the reason for pedestrians to get to the other side of the road.

Against this brightly lit window street urchins press their faces, marvelling at shelf upon shelf of breads in all shapes and colors...

Cheese breads whose license for its name are the tiny cubes of cheese plopped on their heads, rolls unabashedly dyed fluorescent pink, doughnuts liberally dusted with sugar, and crumbly breads shaped into moons and tamarinds.

This was a surprising observation, it got me curious. Everytime I walked around the city, I never would leave any bakeshop unnoticed, uncounted.

There's Tiyo Tinoy's, Providencia, Captain Jack's, some saint I forgot, Pia Mia, Park and Go, and seventy-two others.

But leading the bun race is Julie's that in a ten-minute joy ride, I found twelve. Twelve! As if one in every two blocks weren't enough!

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