Best Rice Terraces to Camp in the Philippines with Erwan

There's nothing quite like the possibilities of the open road. Every turn brings new stories, every bump a rush of adrenaline and unexpected discoveries. Stop where you want, sleep where you can, and pick up some of your favorite bites along the way. This is Forager. While shooting the last three episodes, we started getting concerned about an upcoming storm. For the first few days, we felt confident that we would get ahead of it. But as we were driving long winding roads, the rain finally caught up. In this episode, we head towards Isabela to discover some of their best bites of food before heading up to the gloomy, yet still beautiful rice terraces of Mayuyao. The last few days of a trip are always a little slow. You take time to reflect on everything you have just experienced while knowing that you still have a few short stops to make. The exhaustion settles in, yet you are excited for what lies ahead. Your body starts to ache a little for a nice comfy bed and a warm shower. But you know that once home, surrounded by your creature comforts, that voice inside of you beckoning for adventure will keep getting louder until you feed it again. This food house started before the pandemic. So, I started accepting orders. Until the pandemic hit, it was just right for me to go home. So, we continued online. We gave a twist to the Hong Kong style. Because the Hong Kong style is just like the roasted chicken in Manila, with crawfish. What we did was change the style. He gave us sauce. We were forced to stay at home. We were able to finish 200 pieces. We were able to get vegetables. There were also resellers. They wanted to have a dining area. So, we looked for a place to move to. This is it. This is the Hong Kong style fried chicken. So, now we've arrived at night. Obviously, it's going to be very hard to find a place to camp tonight. So, we decided to come to Santiago. Find a hotel here. I'll take a nice hot shower. I'll have a nice cold bed and an air-conditioned room to be in as well. Tomorrow morning, we're going to start off really early. Have a nice little food tour around Isabela. And then, go up to Mayao Yawifugao for our final destination and our final camp. So, we're here at Ankoi's, which kind of has this legendary status here. And this spot has a vibe, which is quite great. I'm going to try the fried chicken. Because that's what we were looking and waiting for. Tender, crispy. That sauce has just the right amount of umami and salty and sweet. Delicious. I'm going to chow through this. We're going to sleep and pass out. And tomorrow, we're going to start off really early. And really hungry. Isabela is the second largest province in the region and the second biggest in the country. So, we will definitely not be able to cover most of it. It has a long history and is where some of the first people in the Philippines, the Agtas, lived. Their descendants, the Dumagat, still live in the mountains and coastal areas here. Today, it's an important agricultural producer of high-value crops from mongo, tobacco, coffee, bananas, and mangoes. To cash crops like rice and corn. Because of this long tradition of agriculture, you know that the food is going to be delicious. So, I needed a guide. Chef Kokoy Ventura, a local chef born and raised in Isabela, was born into food. His father is a farmer and he discovered his love for cooking early on. He ended up working in restaurants in the U.S. before coming back home and championing regional cuisine. So, he was the perfect person to take me out for some pancit kabagan, the number one recommended dish in the province. Okay, so we have the famous pancit kabagan. I will let you demonstrate how to properly eat this. Well, in history, it originated up north in Kabagan, Isabela. Okay. And that's where they make the miki or the vermicelli. This is an egg noodle with lye water in it. So, it will give you that kind of springy, airy texture. And it smells like something else. Yes. So, basically, that kind of flavor you get from using lye or alkaline based stuff. It's usually topped with quail eggs and chicharones or karahay as we call it here. And a karahay doesn't have meat on it, no? It's just the skin, airy skin. Well, actually, usually, it has the meat, just like this. Essentially, it is a lechon kawali. So, kawali in Ibanag is karahay. And it's cooked in a broth-based pork, a little soy sauce, garlic, onions. But it's typically adorned with lasuna or the fresh onions or scallions. So, I'm going to mix this one real quick. I think the most important thing here that people recognize is the noodles is called kabagan. Now, this comes with a side of calamansi. Some people would typically use a little bit of soy sauce, like so, and put calamansi. And sometimes, people would put chilies in there. So, it's your comfort food here? Yeah, it's our comfort food. It's available everywhere in Isabela. And I think it's because it's something people don't really cook at home. It's more fun to eat it out. And the most important thing, this isn't as expensive as a regular ulam or kanin kind of a thing. So, that's pancit kabagan for you. How is it? If you grew up with me in Manila, your idea of pancit is usually bihon kanton, right? Which to me, I mean, I love those dishes, but this feels a bit more composed. Like, I think the broth in which the noodles are cooked really ties everything together. So, you kind of get this slipperiness in every bite versus a bunch of random ingredients tossed in with the noodles. You know what I mean? Like, it feels kind of like how you would have a fried rice versus a risotto. A risotto feels like it's all linked. A fried rice feels loose. This feels linked, which I think is great. Isabela also has lots of sugarcane, and with that, we knew we weren't far from some muscovado producers. We featured the whole process before, but we believe it's one of those ingredients that deserves more importance. We squeeze the juice of the muscovado in a colander. Then, we cook the juice for four hours. This is Melinda Natividad. She makes patupat, sinaklob, and sinakurat. All of that comes from the muscovado. Muscovado is good for you because it's a diabetic medicine. This is patupat, sir. It's delicious. We put the muscovado in a colander and cook it for four hours. We make this at home. We don't wrap it. We put it in dried rice, the sticky rice. Then, it's ready to be cooked. It's popular. Patupat is popular here. It's delicious. After that sweet short feature, I was hungry for some kakanin. We were told we had to try this particular roadside pasalubong shop, which has become an increasingly popular stopover for all the right reasons. If you haven't tried suman murriecos before, you are missing out. These have now become one of my favorite kakanins in the country. Everyone, this is Jenny. Hello, everyone. Nice to meet you. I'm going to hug. She's known for her murriecos, which is this one. There's a way of eating murriecos. You open the flap. This one flap is good. Then, you split it open. You need practice. Then, you split it open like so. So, you don't have to get your hands all sticky. That's delicious. You had the big one. I had the big one. So, this is stuffed with batik, right? Glutinous rice. Coated around it. How is it actually made? It's like this. It's glutinous rice. We knead it in butter, brown sugar, and water. Then, we knead it until it becomes sticky. What were you saying was special about her karyoka? The karyoka is a lot lighter. It's not too dense. Exactly. It's not too dense. It's not so chewy. There's lots of coconut in there. I actually don't think I've ever had this. Is this an Isabel thing? Yeah, it's an O'Connor thing. As you can see, it's similar to a buchi. I'm a huge Murria fan. I think it's one of those unsung Filipino dishes that should be highlighted more. This is saba, ripe saba. Very flavorful, the saba. I've never had okra on a stick. Now that I'm having it on a stick, I only want it on a stick. It makes so much sense. Especially when it's on a large one. This one's quite nice. It's more fish-forward. A fish that's been draining, absorbing all that chili sauce. So, I put it all in the cup. I douse it with the vinegar. And you drink it. And her sauce is really good. That vinegar. She makes this from scratch. And it's delicious. You can have okois that are extremely dense or too crunchy. Where you have lots of vegetables coming out from every side. This one is a great sized bite. It feels more like a Thai fish cake. After spending some time with Kokoy, we know that we have to come back to Isabela and do more research on the province as it holds so many more treasures to discover. We are finally on our way to Mayoyao, Ifugao. I'm driving the Ford Ranger Wildtrak with the ARB accessories. Personally, my favorite. We're a little delayed because it's just started raining and we've seen the weather updates. And it looks like we are just going straight into a typhoon. So, we hit a couple of spots in Isabela because I wanted to try some of the food here before going up. And then, let's figure out what we can see in Ifugao. And hopefully, this clears up. But right now, it looks like it's just clouds and rain the whole time. The whole way. When you think of rice terraces or mountain towns in the Philippines, Batad, Sagada, and Banaue come up a lot. But if you're looking for a quiet, idyllic setting, Mayoyao, Ifugao should be on your list. A UNESCO World Heritage Site with 2,000-year-old heirloom rice terraces and about 700 well-preserved beautiful native houses. Quick anecdote about these houses, they have some impressive stone floors in their yards. We were told that locals pride themselves on those floors. How they're made is a sign of your hard work. Have you seen this squirmy little fish before? You'll hear us calling them eels a few times, but they're not eels. They were believed to have been brought in by the Japanese, so local people call them that. They are known as pikao or yuyu and are actually an eel-like looking fish species called Mezigurnus anguilicadatus. A little hard to pronounce. I never thought I'd actually be in an eel hatchery. Pretty cool. So making the best out of the rainy day, eels are caught here in the rice terraces, but they've actually invested in an eel hatchery to try to kind of grow them commercially so that the restaurants can also serve it here, but also they can export it to various markets around the Philippines because it is a high-value product currently being sold at around 1,200 per kilo, which is quite high, and they were actually saying the locals, I mean, obviously they can afford it by catching it and eating it, but they can't afford it where they would buy it and they would rather sell it because it's a good source of livelihood. So we're here at the hatchery and we're going to try to understand how everything is made. How big do the Japanese eels get? Four to six inches, sir. Four to six inches? Only. Sir, this is not an eel's fingerling. It's a carp's fingerling. Ah, okay. What we call it here in Mayuyao is a pikaw. Pikaw? Pikaw. Do they bite? No. You're not biting. You can touch and hold. Slippery. It's really like an eel. Yeah. They're tiny. Look at that. The one you are holding are male. How do you know? They have a long fin, just like that. This one. Ah, the female is smaller. Long and pointed, yeah. The female is a little bit round. This one, the bigger one, is a female. This one? Yeah. Ah! This one is a female. Ah, okay. And this one is adult-sized, right? Adult. Ah, so. They are already good for breeding. Breeding. Yeah. We are selling this one for consumption. So you can eat this one? We collect from the restaurant, then put it here for sale. Ah, okay. According to them, this is the most expensive fish in Japan. Really? Yeah. It's true, but that's what they say. Even the small ones? Yeah. Because according to our forefathers, the origin of these eels were from Japan. That's why they called it Japanese eel. Japanese eel. During the Second World War, the Japanese soldiers brought here in the Philippines. They introduced it. Yeah. Since most people here are quite self-sufficient and the rice terraces are still working today for personal use, the small town market doesn't have much on display. But it's great to see what else they grow around here. I was actually surprised to find my favorite rare citrus, Dayap, and that gave me a few ideas about what we could cook later on. I never thought I would be walking rice terraces in the middle of a storm. It's not necessarily the most smartest thing to do, but it's still nonetheless beautiful. We won't be able to show you, unfortunately, the beautiful drone shots, which is what makes Maeo Eel so special. It is absolutely beautiful. The rice that we have here is Tinawan. They don't sell it. I actually want to buy it, but they don't sell it because it's all for local consumption. That's what makes it so rare and so beautiful. I really wish that we'd see these types of heirloom varieties propagated more around the country so that more people could try them because they are really much more fragrant, and I love eating them. We're going to keep trekking. We're going to try to find some meals, maybe some kakanin, some tapui, whatever else we can find so that we can put together a meal for tonight and camp in this. These native houses are honestly so beautiful, and I'm so happy to hear that people still live in them, but they will also be available for tourists to stay in as well eventually. Imagine yourself waking up on a cool morning with these rice terraces right outside your stone house window. These rice terraces are really precious. We're going to plant rice terraces. These are the rice terraces we planted the other day. We're going to plant rice terraces. During World War II, Mayuyao was captured by the Japanese under the command of General Yamashita. The Battle of Mayuya Ridge finally ended between the 1,000 Japanese and the joint forces of native troops of the Cordillera and Ilocos regions, other Filipino soldiers, and some of the United States Armed Forces in the Philippines, which lasted from July 25th until August 8th, 1945. I can actually use this, it's more on the sour side, not the sweet side that we're used to frying. The local government is helping develop some food options as well for wandering tourists such as us, which led us to this house to have some beautiful purple rice kakanin and some heartwarming ginataan. This purple sticky rice variety is so rare to find, and the farmer actually mentioned that she stores these in her granary for personal use only. I was so touched that she handed me a few kilos to take home after. This is the pinangit that we made here in Mayuyao. This is the ginataan, that's what we said here. These white circles are the sticky ones. When it's almost cooked, we'll add the first juice of the squeezed milk. This is what we call tinudok. Because it has a hole. It's sticky, and it has sugar and sesame seeds. It's like a buchi with no filling. So it's like really crisp on the outside. That's a nice glutinous bite. Let's try this one. She said her purple rice is very, very sacred. Mmm. Wow. It's not sweet at all. It has so much texture. I think the type of rice used here just makes a massive difference. Now when you eat suman, it has a grainy feel to it. You can feel the rice grains. This one is like one glutinous texture, which is very unique. That's delicious. When she brought up the ginataan, the little five-year-old in me went, Woo! Look at it. I also haven't had ginataan in forever. But today is the day. This is a special ginataan. Sweet potatoes that are grown here. Mmm. It's so warm. It's kind of cold here, and it's raining. And it kind of just gives you a warm, comforting hug from the inside. Perfect for the rainy weather. Thank you, Paul. Mmm. Love it. I mean, today is not how we expected it to be, mostly because of the weather. Little discoveries like this will keep you happy. Take it one day at a time. With our bellies full, we needed to start looking for a campsite for the night. We found a high point perched up next to a hostel with a gorgeous view of the valley. As I was setting up my ARB camping accessories and rooftop tent, the sky opened up, and we were graced with a half hour of no rain. We need a bigger bowl. It was a long, tiring day, so I thought just cooking in silence would be the perfect way to end this episode, end this series. I decided to try and figure out how to use the sweet potatoes and vegetables I got from the market with the pikao fish. I ended up figuring out how to make ukoy with it, simply dressed with some dayak, flake salt, and some tuba vinegar. Come on.