An Amazing Philippine Seafood Experience

 Conference in Iloilo City, the Philippines

As you know, Pat and I were in Iloilo City, Panay Island, the Philippines, at a conference where over 80 scholars, including Pat, gave talks and slide presentations.  The map below (click to enlarge), shamelessly lifted from Google Maps, locates the beautiful city on the northern end of the Sulu Sea:

The conference venue was the old but well-equipped Grand Xing Imperial Hotel. Weddings, training seminars, and other unrelated events also took place at the numerous event rooms at the hotel during our conference.  Many conference participants (like Pat and me) stayed at the hotel, taking advantage of special rates for conference attendees.  The hotel provided lodgers with breakfast as part of the room rate while it fed a buffet lunch to all conference attendees.  Truthfully, the institutional food could have been better, but it made life easier.

We spent most of a week listening to presentations by 80+ scholars, both grad students and professors, about their current research into various aspects of performing arts in Southeast Asia.  Pat's presentation featured Fusion Wayang Kulit, a group that incorporates Star Wars, Japanese anime, and DC and Marvel Comics heroes in traditional Malaysian shadow play puppets to tell new stories:

 Onward to the Fish Port!

Beset with exhaustive talks and mediocre institutional food,  Prof. Matthew Santamaria, also an attendee of the conference, came to our rescue one evening!  Matthew is a professor at the main campus of the University of the Philippines near Manila and holds a doctorate in law from Kyoto University in Japan.  He's also a dance ethnologist and an expert on the ethnic dances of the various peoples around the Sulu Sea between the Philippines and East Malaysia.  We've known Matthew for many years.  He suggested dinner at the Fish Port in Iloilo!  That's Matthew sitting next to Pat at the Fish Port below.

Five of us hopped onto a Grab car (the SE Asian version of Uber) that took us from the conference venue to the Fish Port. For outdoor seafood dining at the port, we first went through a big fish market, where we bought fish, shellfish, and veggies from vendors.  Feast your eyes on the amazing fish booths (again, click to enlarge):

At their booths, vendors displayed a stupendous variety of fish, crustaceans, shellfish, squid, cuttlefish, and many unidentifiable creatures.  There was also the occasional veggie stall to supply greens for seafood dishes.  Matthew and two scholars from the extreme southern Philippine island of Tawi-Tawi ordered the seafood and veggies from the stalls for all of us.

Then, carrying our "catch" of raw seafood and veggies, we walked over to the cooking and dining area, where numerous restaurants would cook our catch to our specifications (for a price, of course).   The fish market emptied into the dining area, already filling up with seafood enthusiasts for the evening.  The tents to the left are the covered portion of each restaurant stall, useful in times of rain.  From the clouds above, it could very well have rained!  (Luckily, it didn't!)

Matthew led us to Stall No. 14, "Princess and Raver," where he'd already eaten earlier in the conference. (Pat, myself, and the two scholars from Tawi-Tawi were the excuses he needed to come here again!)  We entrusted our "catch" to the proprietress of the stall and waited for the goodies to arrive:

Oh boy, did the food arrive!  Local dishes of ceviche, tiger prawns, seafood stew, mussels, scallops, roasted red snappers, and mounds of rice comprised the extensive menu for the evening.  (Click to enlarge.)

There was way too much food for the five of us! Luckily, as we were wondering what to do with all the uneaten food, a large group of ravenous University of the Philippines scholars from the conference showed up to eat at our booth. We just donated all the leftover goodies to that batch to whet their appetites while their food was being prepared!

With our bellies full, we called another Grab cab and returned to our lodgings.  On the way out of the fish port, I took another look at the fish vendor stalls.  At 9 pm, the stalls were still going strong, and more hungry seafood fans were pouring in:

And so concluded a most memorable Iloilo dining experience!  Thanks, Matthew!  Thanks, Iloilo!