Food, Kiosks and Stalls, Restaurants

The Search for the Best Binalot

Balot Box in BF is no longer operating.

The first time I tried binalot was way back in high school (yes, more than 13 years ago, hehehe). My fourth year class had, in typical large group fashion, decided to spend our farewell party (or some other big high school event—you know how it is when you’re young, every occasion is just overflowing with significance) at a house in Pansol, complete with unfinished concrete bathrooms and a pool packed into what would’ve been the house’s front yard. Incidentally, aside from my first binalot meal, that was also when I had my first taste of Lay’s Potato Chips, which, at the time, could only be procured through Duty Free or some store that sold PX goods (high school is indeed the time we come of age, hahaha).

Our binalot meals—ulam, rice, salted egg, and a tomato, wrapped first in a banana leaf, then in kraft paper, and finally in a clear plastic bag—were bought on the street from a vendor by one of our classmates who lived in the area and had been raised on the stuff. To this day, that stands out in my memory as the best binalot I’ve ever tried.

Mind you, I’m still trying to recapture that binalot experience, although gone are the days of the binalot maglalako: today you can get binalot from chain stores and eat it in airconditioned comfort. Heck, one of the binalot meals I tried recently wasn’t, strictly speaking, binalot at all: it came served on one of those plastic trays with divisions for your food. Friends have told me about the absolutely yummy binalot in some hole in the wall in Carmona. I haven’t been there yet, but I certainly can’t wait to check it out. All I really need are some reliable directions, hehehe.

In the meantime, here are two of the binalot places I’ve tried a bit closer to home.

Balot Box - This place opened a couple of months ago across the Sinangag Express along Aguirre Avenue. While it hasn’t exactly been doing a roaring trade (it is, after all, competing with one of BF’s most beloved cheap Pinoy food places), it’s still there, and that’s saying a lot in a place where businesses tank with alarming regularity. A tarp banner in front announces “Meals at P49″ which would be very impressive, were it not for the 39 buck meals across the road.

Still, sinangag isn’t binalot, so I figured it would be worth a try. I ordered my usual Chicken and Pork Adobo, though I was tempted by the Lechon Kawali and the Chicken Inasal (as advertised, all at 49 bucks). I figured lechon kawali wasn’t the sort of thing you’d want all wrapped up, since the crunchy fat would get all soggy; nor did chicken inasal, normally served on a stick, sound like it would wrap up easily.

The meal came with soup, which was unusually good: none of the katas ng medyas you usually get at canteens and carinderias. The adobo itself was OK: the pork was a bit fatty, but the meat was soft and tasty. There was just one small cut of chicken, but the ulam was enough for the rice, so I didn’t really mind.

What was strange, though, was that the meal didn’t come wrapped up in a banana leaf, which took a lot of the fun out of the whole experience. I suppose if you get a meal to go, they’ll have no choice but to wrap it up. Still, overall, the meal was fine, but in a pinch, the shredded adobo across the road would still be my first choice (in fact, I had to trek across the street to buy drinks, since Balot Box had run low on Coke).

Balot Balot Republic - For highly accessible and, ehem, sosy binalot, there’s always Balot Balot Republic, which is in Town Center’s Food Court. This place serves binalot the classic way: banana leaves first, and their menu printed on kraft paper as the outer ballot layer.

I’ve eaten here a couple of times, although for the life of me, I can’t find any of the pictures we took of our Adobo and Pusit binalot meals. You’ll have to settle for my more recent pictures of their Pork Bistek (an oxymoron if there ever was one; but then again it sounds better than calling it “postek”).

Only selected meals come with salted egg and tomato, though I suppose you could order some and pay a bit more. The pork steak was good but not spectacular, and the adobo was, unfortunately, a bit tough and stringy. Denise had the squid; I didn’t try it, so you’ll just have to wait for her comments about the taste. They have free soup upon request, though theirs is more the watered down canteen kind I was talking about.

Meals at Balot Balot Republic, perhaps due to the mall overhead, are more expensive: they start at 59 bucks for Chicken Bopis and go up to 71 bucks for meals like Adobo, Pusit, and Beef Tapa. Context matters, though: surrounded by expensive restaurants and places serving 500 peso executive meals, the binalot here keeps its “cheap eats” image.

The quest has only just begun, though. One of these days I hope to find myself in Carmona around noon, just in time for a nice, cheap, native lunch. Only I’d better figure out where the legendary binalot is first.

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