My next feature article on food and dining brings me back to Barlin Street. The last time I made a feature on food joints on this street was in the summer of this year where I visited Sinulog Grill, Barlin Barlin Hot Plate and Cattlemens Restaurant.
A new place to go to is PJL Chicken Bacolod (Tel. No. 478-2525). It is located along Barlin Street, occupying one of the doors of apartment-type building, a few steps from Plaza Barlin. If one is heading for the Metropolitan Cathedral, it is on the left side of the street. It is easy to find if you trace where the smoke and emissions are coming from because this food joint serves grilled food, particularly chicken.
It opened on September 12, in time for the perked up appetite for food and dining during the Peñafrancia season. Owner-proprietor Junjun Lopingco, a businessman from Bacolod who started his business in tires, lubricants and auto supplies, and also in rice trading, brought this delicacy and specialty from Bacolod, including the staff and cooks. (The reason that brought him here to Naga is actually found somewhere near where the food joint is located: to someone close to his heart.) Having learned of Nagueños’ love for eating and dining, he thought of introducing this special kind of chicken food delicacy from Bacolod. According to him, this specialty started in Bacolod sometime in the 80’s. It started as what culinary and food critics call now as “streetfood,” a name for food being sold at the sides of the streets like that of isaw, betamax, kwek-kwek or bulastog. Then when it became a popular among the Ilonggos, the local government (of Bacolod) provided and designated a road strip for this kind of food business, with stalls and spaces to be rented out (similar to the San Francisco food alley of Naga) from the government and call it “manukan country.”
Stage and film actor Joel Torre, who also hails from Bacolod, is said to have introduced and brought his own business there in Manila.
PJL Chicken Bacolod offers different grilled parts of chicken like neck or li-og, liver or atay, gizzard or baticolon, butt or isol, wing or pakpak, leg or paa, and breast or pecho. Notice the similarities between Ilonggo and Bikol language with some terms for chicken parts. They can be eaten as meals with plain or garlic rice, or as pulutan as the restaurant also offers some drinks like beer.
What is special, however, about this food joint that gives it its character is the way the food is prepared and is actually to be consumed by the customer. This means that from the preparation, to marinating, and to eating of this chicken dish, it is a distinct experience The preparation begins with the freshly and newly-butchered chicken are cut into parts and put into the skewers (which are actually bamboo sticks). Then it goes to the marinating process where the ingredients are, of course, trade secrets. By the way, they are not grilled or cooked until you make an order. So expect to wait for some ten to fifteen minutes for the grilling time, depending on the volume of the order and preferred chicken parts. And for the eating process, store manager Glin Ortaliz recommends that you eat them with your hands (magkakamay or makamot in Bikol). There is actually a wash basin accessible to diners to wash their hands. Or when you actually make the orders based on the menu, there you will find the instructions on how to enjoy the savory dish, eaten the Ilonggo way, or how the Ilonggos would really eat this dish in Bacolod. It begins by asking you to prepare the sauces composed of vinegar or suka (which in Bacolod they call as langgaw), soy sauce or taw-yo for Bikolanos (and patis for the Ilonggos; the patis or fish sauce for us, they call it “Rufina”, referring to the popular brand name), and the calamansi or lemon. This means that part of enjoying the chicken dish is to baste it with these sauces (now mixed into one) before you bite into a part of the chicken. Then the instructions would ask you to put chicken oil into your ordered rice. Chicken oil which is specially-prepared for the dish, is dyed with atsuete, and comes on the table or condiments rack ready for use. Then it goes to tell you to taste and enjoy the dish using the Ilonggo term namit for taste (something very similar again to ours). Mr. Ortaliz says that their suka or langgaw (which is suka from coconut) also comes all the way from Bacolod.
PJL Chicken Bacolod opens from 11:00 am to 10:00 pm, from Mondays to Saturdays; and from 5:00 to 10:00 pm on Sundays. It has six rectangular tables with four chairs that can accommodate around 20 to 30 persons. It plans to expand and open a branch somewhere in Magsaysay Avenue.
So, visit, try and enjoy the grilled chicken parts and dishes at the newest member of food joints along Barlin Street. And who knows, this pioneering spirit of introducing this Ilonggo dish to the Nagueños’ discriminating tongue might go a long way and become part of the Bikolanos dynamic and brewing food and dining culture.
Feel the experience when Bacolod’s best comes to Bikol.