the world-class piaya is home

Walking around masa Manila, I have never found sugar-coated peanuts anywhere. I asked friends if these are available and peddled in the streets here, too. As far as I have asked, no one has seen anything like these. So only Bacolod has sugar-coated peanuts?

Oh how can I forget? Everything in Bacolod has sugar. Even the chicken inasal has at least a spoonful. =)

Five slurps better
But the best thing that has happened in Bacolod street food is piaya made on the spot along La Salle Avenue. It was clever of this Manong to reintroduce the piaya as a habit after classes, a culture on its own, and not just as ready pasalubong a Bacoleño mindlessly grabs off the shelves. Manong’s piayas too, taste five slurps better than those packed. They are always worth the wait.


The wait, even, is an experience on its own, as it shows you how this Bacoleño delicacy is made: Manong molds the dough mixture into small thick round mounds the size of the Eng Bee Tin hopia. On top of each mound he plops a generous scoop of haleyang ube (candied purple yam paste—churvah!). Then Manong gathers the edges together to enclose the ube, and he’d knead it into a flat disc which he would steam with a little oil.

crepes+pita+creme brulee
The result is a hot treat that marries worlds of mouth-watering epicurean elements. The piaya is thin and round like crepes; it is white and slightly charred light brown on the edges like pita; on its surface are irregular eruptions of craters as in the crème brulee; and biting into a piece, it is flaky and light as croissants. The ube filling, then, is the sweet, slightly chunky paste that drives you back home to sugarcane fields and sing-song tête-à-têtes.

Before, the piaya wasn’t something we, Bacoleños snacked on as much as we sent it to Manila and elsewhere. Thanks to Manong along La Salle Avenue, the piaya is home once more.