Bacolod, the City of Smiles. It is home to the Masskara Festival and unending lines of restaurants. One might even be tempted to consider it as the Food Trip Capital of the Philippines. To get a clearer overview of a trip to Bacolod City, one has to consider that the tour would not be limited to only the tourist spots in the city itself. The nearby cities of Talisay and Silay should also be included in the travel guide and itinerary and so is the much farther town of Murcia where the seven waterfalls of Mambukal National Park is located. My first trip to the province occurred in 2010 and I have since been back thrice after that.

If there’s one thing Bacolod City is well known for, it’s the multitude of food places that line its avenues. There are expensive cafés and posh restaurants of every kind out there, but there are also sidewalk carinderia eateries that shouldn’t be ignored. The most popular of these are the stalls that line Manokan Country, here the famous chicken inasal is king.

MASSKARA MASKS AT MANOKAN COUNTRY

Still groggy from our almost ‘til morning infinity pool drinking session at Melba’s Farm, we headed to Bacolod City’s Manokan Country for our breakfast grub. The plan for the day was to check out Mambukal’s seven waterfalls, we reckon we’ll need all the calories we could get for the trek ahead.

For desserts, we headed to another sidestreet along Lacson Avenue. Next on our Bacolod gastronomic tour was Calea’s sweet cakes.

We attempted to eat at Calea the previous year we visited Bacolod but was dissuaded because the place was packed full. This time, the place was still jampacked but we were really determined to taste the cakes they offer. So, we braved the crowds and found us a seat at the back part of the restaurant.

Calea was not that large and it was pretty cramped inside. The crowd was on the younger side; students and yuppies mostly. The café buzzed with lively conversations.

We were still a bit full from our lunch at Sweet Greens Deli Cafe so we decided to just share a piece of cake.

What started out as a trip to catch the annual Pintaflores Festival in San Carlos City turned out to be a totally different journey across the province of Negros Occidental. Together with The Road Trippers peeps, we were able to visit some new old sights along the towns and cities of Talisay, Bacolod, Murcia and San Carlos. We were also able to try out and taste the local dishes these places have to offer.

I remember an office friend telling me to visit Pala-Pala Market, Bacolod’s version of dampa, during my first excursion to the City of Smiles. For some reason, I wasn’t able to check it out then. Then came my second and third visit, and I promptly forgot about it until this latest jaunt across Negros Occidental.

Tired of eating chicken inasals for two straight days, we looked for an alternative place for lunch; somewhere affordable but still something profoundly Bacolod. Then that conversation rushed back through my head. I know a place, I excitedly told my companions.

My eyes opened and the hills passed; bright green, rolling and undulating with the wind. The sugarcane fields of Negros Occidental swept through our van window. I lifted off the latch and opened the window nearest me just a little bit, letting in a small stream of air to pass inside our warm vehicle. Nobody else seemed to mind, most of my companions were still stranded in Neverland, probably dreaming of lost boys and pirates, oblivious to the scenery outside as we sped off to San Carlos City.

After exhausting all the possible angles of Talisay City’s The Ruins, our group decided to visit the ecclesiastical seat of Bacolod City, the regal stone church of San Sebastian.

I’ve been to this church quite a number of times in the past and have already posted in detail its rich history, but most of my companions haven’t been to the city cathedral. And since we were just in time for the blue hour, I didn’t hesitate to tag along with them and have a few more images of its towering stone facade.

I really didn’t plan to go off and cross the three main islands of the Philippines. It just so happened that I got an invite for a Mindanao festival and my other travel plans for the month of June 2012 just seamlessly volted in together. In the end, I ventured from one of the northernmost province of Luzon, visited the heart of Visayas and landed on the upper lands of Mindanao. Everything-everything in sixteen awesome days without boarding a single airplane.
 

Squeezing in one more church into our Iloilo side trip proved fatal.

The blue hour greeted us as we alighted at the sleepy town of Guimbal in Iloilo to shoot another of the province’s iconic stone edifice, the 400-year old San Nicholas of Tolentino Church. The church however was closed, due probably to the relative lateness of the hour. It was almost seven in the evening and the streets were almost deserted and the shops almost ready to close. I guess the practice of going to bed early in small towns still hold true at Guimbal.

We contented ourselves in shooting the church façade. Guimbal Church’s yellow-tinted stone walls perfectly contrasted with the electric hues of the early evening. And as I was contemplating on shooting the cemetery right beside the church, the rain fell.

Finally able to cross to Bacolod from Iloilo, the first itinerary of the day was breakfast. And nothing’s more appropriate than having it at Bacolod’s Manokan Country; this is as authentic as a chicken inasal can get. From the looks of it, most of the restaurant in the area had just opened up and we were the first customers. Their inasal is still as good as I remembered it the first time I had one years ago.

Here's a rough sketch of our five-day stay in Bacolod.  This includes our side-trip in the cities of Silay and Talisay which is actually still part of Metro Bacolod: 

I T I N E R A R I E S   
 
  Day One
    Café Bob’s
    BREDCO Port Revisited
    Grand Regal Hotel 

  Day Two
    San Sebastian Cathedral
    Capitol Park & Lagoon
    La Corona Café
    Sweet Greens Deli Café
    Calea
    Dinner at The Ruins

  Day Three
    San Diego Cathedral
    Silay Ancestral Houses 
    El Ideal Bakery & Refreshment
    The Bernardino Jalandoni Museum
    Balay Negrense Museum
    Café 1925
    Resto Grill sa Baybay

  Day Four
    Lupit Church
    Business Inn
    Virgie’s Homemade Products
    Starbucks Global Icon City Mug

E X P E N S E S
 
Transportation: P1,807.60

    P717.60 - Roundtrip ticket Manila to Silay City Airport via Cebu Pacific Promo 
                  (2 Persons, P358.80 each)
    P400.00 - NAIA 3 Terminal Fee (2 Persons, P200.00 each)
    P400.00 - Silay Airport Terminal Fee (2 Persons, P200.00 each)
    P000.00 - Transfer from Silay Airport to Grand Regal Hotel (free)
    P300.00 - Transfer from Business Inn to Silay Airport (P150.00 each)

    * Jeepney, Tricycle, and Taxi fares not included for going about the city *

Accommodation: P2,929.00

    P999.00    - Twin-sharing room at Grand Regal Hotel | 1 night
                      Tel No. (034) 708-5888 | (034) 708-5588
    P1,920.00 - Twin-sharing room at Business Inn | 2 Nights (P960.00/night)
                      Tel No. (034) 433-8877 | http://bacolodbusinessinn.com/

Food:  P3,311.00

    Day One   - P519.00
        P405.00 - Lunch at Café Bob’s 
        P114.00 - Grocery for coffee, snacks
    Day Two   - P1,230
        P160.00 - Breakfast at La Corona Café
        P265.00 - Lunch at Sweet Greens Deli Café  
        P190.00 - Snacks from Sweet Greens Deli Café (Banadas and Patties)
        P 80.00  - Calea cake dessert
        P535.00 - Dinner at the Ruins
    Day Three - P800.00
        P180.00 - Breakfast at El Ideal Bakery
        P170.00 - Early Lunch at Café 1925
        P450.00 - Dinner at Resto Grill sa Baybay
    Day Four - P762.00
        P369.00 - Breakfast at the Business Inn
        P393.00 – Lunch at Café Bob

     * Pasalubongs and Souvenirs not included *

T O T A L   S P E N D I N G S
    More or Less P8,047.60 (for two persons or 4,028.80 per person) 
                   
     
Places that we were not able to visit or revisit:

    The nearby Guimaras Island
    Mambukal National Park
    Negros Beaches

Before leaving Bacolod, we dropped by the local Starbucks Coffee, not to have coffee, as we already had one at Café Bob’s, but to get a special coffee mug.

Priced at Php425.00, it was pretty expensive but it’s just so beautiful.

Out front, the mug depicts Bacolod’s old iron dinosaurs, the steamrollers that once plied the city transporting tons and tons of sugarcanes on its carriages. At the back, a field of sugarcanes is printed.  The mug is made from ceramic and is quite hefty.

This was the mug that made me decide that I will collect all the Starbucks Global Icon City Mugs across the Philippines.

As customary for every Filipinos, we never leave a place before buying some pasalubong for our relatives back home. So we went right at it after having our breakfast at the Bacolod Business Inn.

There were quite a few souvenir houses in Bacolod City, but since we decided on just bringing home foodstuff, out list was shortened to three; Bongbong’s, Merci’s and Virgie’s. We went with the latter, having tasted their napoleones before. We actually didn’t have a hard time choosing where to get our pasalubong, it was always Virgie’s for us.

The store is named after its owner, Virgie Chua, who has been baking goodies for 37 years now. That hobby had now turned into one of the biggest brands in the province of Negros Occidental.

Located right beside Bacolod City’s main thoroughfare, the Business Inn had always been our choice accommodation since our first trip to the City of Smiles, and it continues to be so.

We first got wind of this hotel during an off-peak promo they had, for a measly Php800.00 we got a Junior Executive room (upgraded from the Regular one we were supposed to have since it was full).

The hotel’s facade was as generic as hotel architecture went and we really had no idea what was in store for us; we were pleasantly surprised after checking in.

It was our last day in Bacolod and I was scrambling to cram everything I haven’t seen in the city in just a few hours.
I was up and about by four in the morning, out the hotel by five and looking for grub some minutes after.

I had a glimpse of the church I’m about to visit the previous day while on a taxi. I asked the driver for its name, Lupit Church, his reply. He said that inside its gate was a seminary, so I promptly inquired if visitors are allowed in. He shrugged with a not so assuring yes and that was the end of it.

Since we were disappointed with the sunset we witnessed at the BREDCO Port on our first day in Bacolod, we decided to try it out once more before we left the city.

We trooped to the port by late afternoon, passing the throngs of people gathered at the plaza due to the approaching Masskara Festival. We arrived at the breakwater by 5:30pm, exactly as the sun was setting down.

Again, we were disappointed, no spectacular sunset in sight.

The scorching heat of the midday sun made us scramble for shelter of the cool shades of the Sweet Greens Deli Café. Dotted by tall shady trees and wooden trellises, it looked liked the perfect place for lunch.

We checked their back garden where tables and chairs were set al fresco style but the sun was just too hot and the transparent greenhouse-like roofing was not enough to cool the area down. After much indecision, we settled for the more shaded front garden. Our constant changing of tables seemed to tick off our waiter judging by the looks he’s giving us.

Since our first visit to Bacolod, La Corona Café has always been on our list of coffee shops to try out. It has however proved to be elusive as we were unable to pinpoint where exactly in the city it is located. Browsing through numerous blogs attesting to its legendary coffee, checking maps and asking the locals proved futile in finding this obscure café.

I guess it’s just pure luck that the random local we asked this time around immediately knew La Corona Café and its location. So after meeting up with L at the Bacolod’s Capitol Park, we started working as to how we would get there.

From the plaza, we walked two blocks to a Burgos Market-bound jeepney terminal. We boarded shotgun, so we could see exactly where we were going. After a few minutes, the jeep was filled and we were on our merry way.

The morning has just risen and fifteen minutes of walking from Bacolod’s San Sebastian Cathedral brought me to Negros Occidental’s Capitol. Nestled between the sea and the city’s main thoroughfare, the neo-classical Capitol building sits majestically in the middle of a park complete with avenues lined with lush trees and a huge lagoon filled with fishes. 

The Capitol Park or more popularly known as The Lagoon was bristling with morning activities as the city slowly woke up. From far off, I can already hear the sound of lively music blaring from the park that morning exercisers were dancing to. The lagoon was also filled with joggers making rounds along its periphery.

Almost everyone was still in slumber land as I quietly padded down the hotel lobby and went out into the still dark streets of Bacolod. I flagged down the first jeepney that passed my way and was soon speeding down towards the town plaza.

I alighted at the market and crossed the sleeping plaza where school kids practicing for the upcoming Masskara festival were already starting their routine. At the other side of the square stood my query; the oldest church in Bacolod, the Cathedral of San Sebastian.

Bacolod Cathedral was built in 1825 and was originally made of wood. It went through various transformations; towers and bells added then removed, materials upgraded until it stands as it looked now. With an impressive façade and height, it is now built of coral stones mined from the nearby Guimaras Island and wood imported from Palawan; the masonry works were done by Chinese artisans.