Bongbong’s Bacolod Pasalubong: Piaya Is Life!

Even with the pandemic still ongoing, you can make your visit to the City of Smiles, Bacolod City, more fun by taking along a box full of delicious delicacies from Bongbong’s Piaya and Barquillos. This popular gourmet and delicacy bakeshop, deemed by many to be number one in terms of pasalubong goodies, is full of delicious treats that will surely satisfy your cravings when making those long tour trips in the city and the island of Negros Occidental.

Bongbong’s Piaya and Barquillos is well known all over the Philippines. In fact, try asking some of your friends or relatives who have already been to the City of Smiles what type of delicacy they brought home as pasalubong and where did they bought it from, and five will give you ten they will answer Bongbong’s. It’s true! This lovely pastry shop is so popular that tourists often associate piaya, a deliciously sweet treat from Negros, with Bongbong’s. It’s as if this wonderful bakeshop is the only one making piaya in Negros Occidental, which obviously is not actually accurate since there are a lot of bakeshops here that are producing piaya. But who can blame these delightful tourists who continuously associate piaya with Bongbong’s? After all, the best and tastiest piaya can be bought right off their shelves!

Here are some of the delicious goodies that you can get from any Bongbong’s Piaya and Barquillos shop.

Piaya

BongBong’s has made sure that even with the ongoing pandemic, it will continue to bring this favorite Filipino treat to every home by continuously producing the delicacy. It is said that your visit to Negros Occidental is not fully complete without tasting this original product of the province. While it may be true that there are now some other cities and provinces with pasalubong stores and bakeshops that offers piaya, the product was actually first conceived and produced in the province of Negros Occidental.

While the general notion is that the origin of any given product does not necessarily mean it is the best may hold some degree of truth, that same belief does not apply at all to piaya products that are being produced in Negros Occidental. Try tasting a piaya being produced in other regions and compare it with the one you bought from Bacolod City, specifically from Bongbong’s Piaya and Barquillos, and you will definitely notice the difference. You will certainly find out that the one you got from Bacolod City is the best compared to those produced in other regions.

While there is really no certain and established reason why piaya being produced in Negros Occidental is tastier and more delicious compared to those produced in other regions, perhaps being the sugar basket of the Philippines and being near to areas where raw materials can be easily obtained may play a huge part on this enigma.

BongBong’s Piaya: Your Reason To Taste Barquillos and Tarts

Smile even with “lockdown” restrictions in place! At BongBong’s, there is always a reason to smile! The delicacies will always be scrumptious, you will love every bite.

Barquillos is another delectable treat that you can partake of whenever you are in Negros Occidental. Obviously, no other barquillos out there may compare to what BongBong’s can offer. Although this is one of the products that almost every bakery makes and therefore is very abundant anywhere you go, the one made by Bongbong’s Piaya and Barquillos is exceptionally tasty and delicious.

Maybe it is in the ingredients that the expert chefs and bakers of the number one pastry shop of Bacolod City use, or maybe it is in the way they prepare and cook those barquillos. One thing is clear, however, and that is, when you talk about barquillos and you want to get your hands on the best and tastiest, there is only one place to go and that is Bongbong’s Piaya and Barquillos.

Caramel Tarts and Pastillas de Mangga

You might think that because the name of the number 1 pastry shop in Bacolod City is Bongbong’s Piaya and Barquillos, it immediately follows that all they offer are various types of piaya and barquillos. Oh, no, not so. While they do have a broad range of piaya and barquillos products creatively concocted by their skillful chefs and bakers which definitely would get a pastry connoisseur like you salivating, they also have a wide array of other pastry products that you can bring along with you and enjoy as you tour the beautiful City of Bacolod and island of Negros Occidental.

Chief among these other pastries are the various types of tarts they offer such as the Caramel, Macapuno, and Pastillas de Manga. These delightful pastries will give life to your Negros Island road trip as they offer you the wonderful taste of caramel, macapuno and mango perfectly complemented by their tasty crust.

If you want to check out what other delicious pastries and cookies available at Bongbong’s Piaya and Barquillos, you can always visit the product section of their website. Click here to be immediately taken to that area.

So, if you want to fully enjoy your Negros Occidental and City of Smile, make sure you bring along with you a pack of Bongbong’s Piaya and Barquillos goodies. You will be glad you did.

Bongbong’s Piaya and Barquillos: Helping Families Smile Again

The pandemic is not a reason to stop smiling and BongBong’s continue its operations by helping provide employment to hundreds of families! After all, their products are among the most sought-after delicacies in the Philippines!

Every day, BongBong’s employees do their best to continually provide the tastiest snacks to families from all over the country. Did you know that Filipinos who go home from out of town trips never leave the area they have been without first buying pasalubong? Yes, it’s seldom, if not totally nil, for Filipinos to go home from their trips without bringing something home for the entire family, including sometimes their neighbors and friends. Take for instance visitors of Bacolod City, famous for its moniker “The City of Smiles. Visitors of this beautiful city normally would take home delectable treats they bought from, you guessed it right, Bongbong’s Piaya and Barquillos. So what are the more common Bacolod pasalubong they would often bring home?

Perhaps the most popular Bacolod pasalubong that visitors from out of town would buy from Bongbong’s to bring home to their families is the flaky pastry treat known as piaya. Actually, there is no single historical document that could point out to the actual origin of, and how it came to be called as, piaya. Ask any local if he or she knows how it came to be called piaya and you would definitely get a blank stare along with a sheepish “I don’t know” answer. You might say “Oh, that’s easy to find out – just google it!” Unfortunately, even people at the giant search engine Google are at a loss on how it came to be known as piaya.

In fact, try searching for “what is piaya?” on Google and the first item on the search engine result page is an information about “Paella” which is an altogether different food with origins traced back to the Spanish province of Valencia.

Regardless of how it came to be called as such, the fact is that it is often the number one item on the list of visitors from out of town to bring home. Why? Simply put, it is very delicious. Once you have tasted it, you will definitely find yourself reaching out for another piece. The best thing about piaya is that it can be served with any beverage, from water and soda to hot or cold coffee. In a way, you could consider it a “versatile” delicacy. This versatility and delicious taste are perhaps two of the major considerations on why it remains very popular among visitors from out of town and locals.

Caramel, macapuno, cheese and mango tarts are also high on the list of out of town visitors. In fact, these pastry types are among the favorites, not only of local tourists, but foreign tourists as well.

BongBong’s Piaya and Barquillos: A Favorite of The Japanese

The pandemic has brought a lot of changes to the way tourism was carried out, however, with vaccines slowly being rolled out, there is a bright hope that things will be back to normalcy.

Tourists, both local and foreign, may once more visit the stores and bring with them the best delicacies of BongBong’s. Take the case of Japanese tourists. They are famous for having a discriminatory taste, particularly when it comes to foreign food. Who can blame them? After all, Japanese cuisine is among the best in the world, alongside French, Chinese, Italian, and of course, Filipino dishes. Japanese tourists are very selective of the food they eat and you can be sure that they will never come back to a restaurant or food shop if they find the foodstuffs there unsuitable to their palate. The fact that a lot of Japanese tourists, along with other nationalities, keep coming back to the number 1 pastry shop in Bacolod City, Bongbong’s Piaya and Barquillos, to buy cheese tarts and many other delicacies and treats, is an affirmation on the quality and delicious taste of their products.

One Japanese guy, Takeshi Oda, when asked on what type of “Omiyage” (in loose context, may also be considered pasalubong – Japanese style) would he like to bring home, he answered, without hesitation, “cheese tarts” by Bongbong’s Piaya and Barquillos. When asked why? He said that he liked it so much because it tasted very much similar to quality and expensive pastries that are available in various specialty food shops and convenience stores in Japan. The only difference is that he can buy almost four packs here for the price of a single, small Japanese cheese pastry treat.

Oda also said that his family would always remind him to bring home a box or two whenever he happens to be visiting Bacolod City.

This only shows that the quality products that Bongbong’s Piaya and Barquillos is producing can match even the most delicious pastry delights in other countries.

Another well-known and delicious Bacolod pasalubong is biscocho. Sometimes spelled and pronounced as “bizcocho,” it is made of a toasted cake or muffin topped with frosted sugar, which has been blended until a creamy texture was achieved, heated, and poured over the flat area of the biscocho. This delicious pastry has actually Spanish origins and may have been brought to the Philippines by Spanish conquistadores. Visitors from out of town say that they love the tasty crunchiness of the bread and the delicious frosting, which surprisingly, have just the right amount of sweetness.

If you think that these yummy pastry delicacies are the only treats being offered by the number 1 pastry shop in Bacolod City then you have another think coming. Bongbong’s Piaya and Barquillos offer a broad range of scrumptious pastry treats that would make any food connoisseur salivating in delight. So just visit the product section of the Bongbong’s website see their wide array of pastry offerings.