Bicol Coconut and Chilli Cooking

Filipino food is generally not spicy, and Bicol is the exception. The region grows both coconut and small hot chillies in quantity and puts them together in almost everything. Bicol Express is pork simmered in coconut milk with shrimp paste and enough siling labuyo to make it a challenge. Laing is dried taro leaves cooked down slowly in coconut cream until they collapse into a dark, oily, fiery mass. Pinangat wraps fish or meat in fresh taro leaves and simmers the parcels the same way. It is cooking built on two ingredients and a lot of patience, and it is best eaten in the region, where restraint is not applied for visitors.

What you actually see

• Laing - dried taro leaves reduced in coconut cream with chilli until dark and thick.
• Bicol Express - pork in coconut milk with shrimp paste and a heavy hand of small chillies.
• Pinangat - parcels of taro leaf tied around fish or meat and simmered in coconut.
• The chilli itself - siling labuyo sold by the cup in Bicol markets, small and very hot.

When to go

Year-round. Bicol is one of the wettest and most typhoon-exposed regions of the country, with the risk concentrated between June and November, so a food trip is easier in the dry first half of the year. Markets in Naga and Legazpi are the place to see the raw ingredients; midday is when the cooked-food counters are fullest.

Honest expectations

The heat is real by Philippine standards, though a Thai or Sichuan eater will find it moderate. Laing is not photogenic and its texture puts people off before they taste it. Coconut cream makes these dishes very heavy in a hot climate. Ordering by region outside Bicol usually gets a milder, sweeter version. Typhoon season disrupts travel through the region more than anywhere else.

Nearby

Mayon volcano rises over Legazpi; Donsol and the Sorsogon coast are south of the region.