Tama Plaza at Balaring by the Bay : A culinary find in Silay City

Part of the Bacolod week-end involved my discovering a place that a lot of Negrenses go to for their seafood fix. Balaring is a coastal barangay in Silay City. Far from the highway, you make a turn at the Teresita Jalandoni hospital, pass through hectares of the ubiquitous sugar cane fields and wend your way through narrowing roads until you reach a lot of simple native huts on stilts, above the water.

My DOT tour guide friend recommended Tama Plaza as his go-to place for "tourists" like me.

This is the view from Tama Plaza, there are other similar establishments, breezy native huts on stilts right on the water, or in this case, on the mud as it was low tide the time we visited.

The interiors are very basic. Your standard wooden tables with monobloc chairs, old style plastic table cloths, clipped to the table to keep them from flying off.

The fresh strong breeze at Balaring beats air conditioning by a mile!

We started our lunch with a balde of oysters, huge and plump and fresh.

It was a month without an R but when it comes to food, I usually throw caution to the winds (in this case, to the Balaring breezes).

Next up was a very good fish sinigang made of that delectable portion of the fish, the panga or collarbone. It was perfectly soured with batuan. This is not your typical Tagalog sinigang after all.

We also ordered shrimps, which came fried in garlic and butter. While I noticed they were the white shrimp and not suahe which is what I prefer, they were fresh and yummy nonetheless.

This was the only misstep of the meal. Blue marlin which I had initially wanted as grilled but I was prevailed upon by the waitress to have it fried. It came out dry and rather bland. A waste of a good slice of fish.

Since the blue marlin did not come up to expectations, I was a bit worried about the sizzling squid. I needn't have because apparently, they saute it in some sort of teriyaki barbecue sauce and lots of butter. And butter always makes anything taste better!

I have stopped eating meat of any kind but for the carnivores in the group, we ordered a grilled pork chop. According to them, it was well cooked and juicy -- a fitting complement to a memorable seafood meal!