Renowned for its old world charm, Vigan (a designated UNESCO world heritage site), in the new millennium, has multiplied its efforts to preserve the historic town. It also recently made the New7Wonder Cities.
One of Vigan’s sons, tycoon Jose “Bonito” Singson, is so passionate about heritage preservation. He welcomed his longtime friend and FoodPrints host, Sandy Daza, and the team into his nest. A Vigan house so splendidly restored — a mix of Spanish Colonial, Chinese and Ilocano influences, the details very quiet, making personal memoirs and portraits and his daughter’s artworks stand out.
The first time we were at Casa Caridad, his house named after his late mother, he treated us to cocktails – the finest Ilocano nosh of “bogi ti Semana Santa”, ipon with capers, fresh oysters in the shell, fine wine and pias with salt to keep us up.
The next day, at the actual shoot of Sandy and Bonito’s trusted cook, manang Tita Mendoza, a historical spread unfolded. As a blogger, I’ve always aimed to experience Ilocano food from a different perspective. Hoping to blog about the food of Vigan separately and completely soon. Meanwhile you should watch the FoodPrints Vigan and Ilocos Sur episodes to see what I mean.
With so much thanks to Bonito Singson.
Sampling Vigan’s Spanish influenced canatillo, turones de mani and balicucha.
Piedra China
If you will notice, we were actually seating on vintage moviehouse chairs.
Stained glass photo by Nikki Alfonso, hammock and door photos by Christine Rae de Leon and movie, Vigan sweets and second photo by Melanie de Leon.
Photographed by Blauearth© Blauearth™ All Rights Reserved 2009-2015
