Pangasinan Food Tour 2014: Laoac

A basket of sweet treats

It may be the youngest town in Pangasinan, but Laoac seems to have mastered the art of making their delicacies through hundreds of years of practice.

At our second stop during the Pangasinan Food Tour 2014, we were delighted to fill our stomach with sweet treats from Laoac. Their close to unique presentation of two of the most famous Pangasinan rice cakes proves to be a good quality of the town one will find admirable.

True, they might not have originated from Laoac, but their tupig and patopat can be considered one of the best. The town dared to be different and has been successful enough in its feat.

Tupig, a mixture of glutinous rice, coconut bits and sugar, is one of the things that make Pangasinan popular across the country in terms of food. Sure, other places such as the Ilocos provinces and Tarlac also offer the treat, but Pangasinan’s is considered one of the most sought after varieties.

Presentations of this heavenly snack and desert, however, also vary from town to town. Some come with less amount of glutinous rice which renders the texture rather rough because of the coconut bits. Others are so sticky that they stick to the banana leaves with which they have been wrapped. Later on, you’ll realize you’ve eaten less than what you’ve paid for.

Still others come with a smooth texture, satisfying your delicate tongue and raging palette because of the right amount of glutinous rice. The level of sweetness is just right and the whole thing doesn’t stick to the banana leaf. If you’ve tasted this variety of tupig, then it surely must have come from Laoac. Trust me on this: It won’t fail your expectations. Sure enough, you definitely get exactly what you’ve paid for P5.

The town’s patopat is equally flavorful and satisfactory. Well, that may be considered an understatement because it’s definitely close to excellent! Laoac’s patopat, wrapped in woven coconut leaves just like the other varieties, is cooked in boiling sugarcane juice produced from Laoac’s sugarcane mill.

Rice cakes, however, are not all that Laoac can offer to us. Rising in this municipality is the Fifth District of Pangasinan Dairy Cooperative, a cow’s milk processing facility producing 4,500-5,000 liters of fresh milk daily from hundreds of corn fed cows.

Chocolate flavored fresh milk is a regular find at supermarkets and grocery stores; even at the dairy farm. But, what makes their product more delightful and enticing is that it’s been reconciled with such flavors as pandan, ube, melon and strawberry. Now that’s an exciting way to drink milk.

Evidently, Laoac is not rich in tourist attractions, but its principle of daring to be different in what it can offer makes the town attractive to tourists. As we know, travellers often go for the unique, the extraordinary. And when talking about that, Laoac is one of the go-to places that must never be absent from your list.