Kusina Salud at Bisita Iglesia

What a jam-packed holy week we had! Just to give you some snippets of what we were up to during the four-day weekend.

Maundy Thursday
A very looong drive to Kusina Salud for a buffet lunch of Pako Salad, Lumpiang Ubod, Sinigang, Kulawo salad (Both in banana hearts and eggplants), Tapang Kalabao (yes, carabao), seafood Kare-Kare and halo halo for dessert. Yum, well worth the drive.








After a very sumptuous lunch, we make our way back to Manila for Bisita Iglesia. Bisita Iglesia (Literally means visiting churches), in Filipino tradition is visiting a total of 14 churches. A prayer is said for each church, representing each station of the cross. We managed to visit 7 churches. We went to Manila Cathedral where none other than Cardinal Rosales officiating the mass.



After that we went to San Agustin, just walking distance from manila Cathedral. It’s the most interesting walk ever. The small eskinita is filled with every imaginable Filipino street food and kakanin (local desserts)! Boiled peanuts, grilled and boiled corn, grilled bananas (that’s a new one, even for me), grilled and fried dried squid, fish balls, kikiam, squid balls, Indian mango with bagoong, sa malamig (a cold multi colored beverage with milk, gelatin and tapioca balls), coconut juice. I was very tempted to buy everything! Damn the germs! :-) But I was with my mom and Tita Cora and we were on a tight schedule. So many junk food, so little time......



Other churches that we visited were, Paco Park, Binondo Church, San Marcelino Church, Malate Church and the Church near mall of Asia.

For dinner, we stopped by Aristocrat for their famous Chicken barbecue with Java Rice. The recipe is unchanged all these years. In fact, my Tita Cora held her wedding reception there many decades ago!

We also dropped by my mom’s childhood home in Singalong (it’s now a bank) . She and Tita Cora told me so many stories about their childhood and my grandparents. It’s also a trip down memory lane for them. I miss my grandparents too. Easter has always been such a huge celebration with my grandmother.

By the time we got home, it was past midnight!