For the rest of the week, this spot in Legaspi St. is a perfunctory parking lot. On Sunday, it comes into life, shaded in large white tents, lightly clouded with the haze of its grilled food. There is a gypsy-like feel, but some of the sellers/owners at the stalls look a tad too well-heeled to be gypsy types. Many of them were enterprising foreigners. Perhaps it's more of an upper-class hippie vibe. It’s not fine-dining of course, but many of what’s served here tasted like food cooked straight out of kitchens who kept family recipes like treasures. The taste was more true to itself as compared to what’s available in malls and even restaurants.
They are immensely proud of what they sell. “I baked it myself this morning” I overheard the French entrepreneur, insisting on having a potential customer try a quiche. All around, there are croissants, cabiatta bread and pastries. Another table sold organic mushroom burgers and when asked if I can try, he indulged with a polite “please do” and most pleasantly showed me the mushrooms from which the burgers were 100% made from. Out here you can pretty much sample everything. The first time I was here, a fellow who would look as if he’d wear a tie on week days handed me a rockefeller oyster. Walking around is looking at the menu, or not just the menu – but the food and even its ingredients. When I seemed interested in a dish, they’ll give you a Popsicle stick and have you try that beef rendang. The spot for the Morrocan dishes also sold tajines. The Pad Thai was cooked on the spot by a guy who looked Thai (but probably wasn't), and you can watch how generously they throw in garlic and noodles. There’s lechon from Cebu, crabs cooked by Alavar’s, callos, paella negra, okoy and turon. It’s a market – so there’s also fresh produce: organic lettuce, fresh seafood, bird houses (to our little I.'s delight) and folding bikes. There’s a stall for Himalayan salt, and this is also where we get D.’s favored household “green” products: the grapefruit laundry detergent, green tea and aloe dish cleaners, my herbal water sports spray, orange and mint disinfectants from Messy Bessy. More than the non-toxic products, we admire the sustainable, local sourcing, environment-conscious advocacy.
The organic food in the market has their own area and tables, but while it looked good I’ve had a full fruit sandwich and it wasn’t as exciting as say, the baked empanada. The baked empanada was very reasonably priced too (four for 100), with a hint of curry in the beef variant, pervading olive and tomato taste in the vegetable variant. It partners pefectly with a strawberry or blueberry yogurt shake.
It gets hot under these tents, and the visitors already know so everyone’s mostly dressed lightly, sunglasses on. With the noontime heat, it’s always a perfect time for Merry Moo's sea salt ice cream. You will be thirsty and that’s when the pandan or dalandan iced teas work their magic. There’s pure sugarcane juice sold too, and ultimately – German beer. It escapes me how some of me my fellow country men, or even the balilkbayans who were just raised with electric fans, always complain about how hot and humid it is as though we didn't all spend our childhood in this tropical country. Look at all these beautiful drinks to quench that your thirst and feel refreshed on a Sunday. We are on the bright side, after all.
We always take our little pre-schooler I. with us on all the Sunday lunches we have here. He seems to have figured out the map of the place. He swings on a lose branch of a tree. He lets small little hands tap to the beat of a store that sold Bongos. A lot of folks play the bongos too, and it serves as as an apt background music to the area that sold utensils with colorful gems, some artwork and books. There's also a small playground just right behind where we let him run around some more. We wish playgrounds and parks didn't have to be this small.
Recently, many of the malls in the city started to adapt the Sunday Market concept. We tried one which was set-up in the park in front of Shangri-La hotel in Ayala. It's called Cucina Andare, featuring "meals on wheels" food trucks. There's some comfort in finding the local beers and locally-made bottled iced teas called "Bayani Brew." Spicy chicken wings were good too, which comes with a plastic glove so you can use your hands to eat. Everything else just seemed either too forced, or too rushed, and painfully too commercial with the familiar names that invite you to franchise. The paella was just glorified fried rice that they microwaved. There was live music which was just too loud. We were turned off with how it tried hard to copy and ended up as a wannabe at best.
The Legazpi market has a sense of community that almost feels real, and realizing how this concept really sells, the imminent sad story is that it'll be all be too commercialized. Eventually, they will prioritize profit over that priceless Sunday Market sense of community. But there's still a good thing going on there, but as the way it is with things organic, big and fast and profitable isn't always best. Otherwise, it'll be just another perfunctory parking lot.
