Kakanin Lovin'

by Jazmyne Cueto

Whenever you visit Batangas, there are a lot of kakanin for merienda or even for breakfast that you could try. These three famous kakanin that will be discussed are based on reasearch and blogs of other people who have tried tasting it already. For the next update of this article, I would be sharing to you how good this kakanin tastes as we visit Lipa, Batangas.

Aling Ninay's Special Tamalis

First is the Suman Tamalis; the Suman Tamalis is not the same with the kind of Suman we have here in Manila. The Suman Tamalis is rectangular in shape and is wrapped in a banana leaf. It iscooked steamed. Its ingredients are made from powdered rice flour, coconut milk, ground peanuts, chicken, pork, and boiled eggs. It has a strong sharp taste, spicy and a little bit salty. This kakanin is one of the favorites in Batangas.  Second is the puto which is very soft and as we all know, it matches with dinuguan. There is a well known puto in town; its name is Aling Ninay’s Tamalis and Puto Special. The puto she makes doesn’t need a viand anymore because it is very tasty already. The third kakanin is the D’ Lovers Line Bibingka. The bibingka in Batangas is cooked on top of the banana leaves inside an open clay pot. It is also topped with red salted duck eggs, cheese, butter and grated coconut.

THE KAKANIN EXPERIENCE (An Update)

Hearing all the positive comments about the kakanin in Lipa made my groupmates and I wonder what it has in it that makes it really special.

D' Lovers Line Bibingka

We first tried D' Lovers Line Bibingka which is located at B.Morada Ave., cor. Lipa City Youth Cultural Center. They have two branches in the city and we went to their branch which had a bahay kubo set-up. We think that they used that kind of store to show a very Filipino style. They do not use modern equipments. But they only use palayok and charcoal for cooking. They have three different kinds of bibingka, these are special bibingka with cheese and salted egg, bibingka with keso, and the regular bibingka. They sell their bibingka in a very affordable price ranging only from P15-P20/piece. When we got there, the customers were all adults with ages ranging from 40-60. We think one of the factors why there were a lot of adults there because they also serve salabat. 
We tried the special bibingka with cheese and salted egg. It was very delicious and it was served to us right after it was cooked. The salted egg and cheese was a very good combination and it was so soft. We were not a fan of eating bibingka but when we have tried this, it tasted how we expected it and it was delicious.

Aling Ninay's Special Puto

Aling Ninay’s Puto Special was the second kakanin we have tried and it was very different from the puto in Manila. We went to the place where they make the puto and it is where Aling Ninay lives it is located at C.M. Recto Ave.,cor. Kap. S.Luz St. But you may also buy in that store. The puto we have here is eaten as is without putting any other toppings or sauce. But the puto they have in Lipa is the putong malagkit and it has a sauce of malagkit and a topping of latik. 

I like eating puto but when I saw their puto, I thought I wouldn’t like it all because it didn’t look like the regular puto I eat in Manila, like the ones in Goldilocks. Also, it had the malagkit and the latik which I thought wouldn’t be so good. But, I had to try it and I was also curious with all the articles I’ve read because they say that the puto tasted really good. I was surprised when I tried tasting the puto because it was indeed delicious.