Food Gourmand

Kapampangans are generally regarded to be the best cooks in the country and for Manilans, the 1.5 hour drive makes it even easier to indulge in the area's bounties. Here's a list of my favorites.
Everybody's Morcon
Everybody's is a typical provincial restaurant: it's a cafeteria-style set-up, where the food is displayed behind a glass counter. Scan the dishes and hail the first server (all of them are clad in white casual barongs); they'll take care of your order.
The place may strike you as a bit "tired," it's been around since 1967 after all, although the business itself began in 1946. Get over the restaurant's façade and your initial impressions, and let your taste buds take over.
The star at Everybody's is the morcon, or how they spell it, "murcon." Traditionally a beef roll, this is made from a guarded family recipe. I'm told by the owner, Pette Jorolan, that it takes six hours to make — a dish that defines the spirit of slow food. The murcon glistens in its drippings, the color of what I imagine the sun would be if it were dipped in honey. Taking a bite, I taste deep meaty flavors echoing with saltiness.
Uraro and San Nicolas Cookies
These are two types of cookies from Pampanga that I like: uraro and San Nicolas. Native to the area, both are examples of arrowroot cookies.

Uraro is a cross between polvoron and butter cookies.
Arrowroot is a starch powder obtained from the root of a (West Indian) plant. If I'm not mistaken, I think it may be the cassava plant. Similar to cornstarch or rice flour, it's often used as a thickener for puddings and sauces. It also has a very low gluten content, so cookies made from it are delicate and powdery, much like shortbread. Because the powder is also called araruta, that may have been where the name uraro originated, thus uraro cookies. Its texture is a melting sort of crunchy, if you can imagine that, given its ingredients of arrowroot (cassava) flour, butter, sugar, salt, eggs, and milk. To put it more illustratively, uraro is a cross between polvoron and butter cookies.
Where uraro is found, the San Nicolas cookie can never be too far behind. Also made from arrowroot flour, sugar, and eggs, some versions include anise, dayap (lime) and coconut milk. The cookies are made to celebrate the feast of San Nicolas, the patron saint of bakers. Its characteristic leaf shape is created by rolling the dough then pressing it into wooden molds carved with the saint's likeness. The mold is a favorite among antique collectors because no two San Nicolas cookie molds are alike.

The cookies are made to celebrate San Nicolas, the patron saint of bakers
I've never been able to make out the impressions on these cookies, but it supposedly shows the saint wearing his Augustinian habit and holding a bird on a plate.
Available at Pampanga supermarkets, pasalubong stores, and some restaurants like Everybody's.
A La Crème
I love ube cake but there isn't much of it or a wide variety available in Manila. The A La Crème ube cake is dense and believe it or not, has macapuno and walnuts rippled in the cake. The cake's ube buttercream filling and frosting has that characteristic ube taste with a velvety texture.

The A La Crème ube cake is dense and has macapuno and walnuts
The servers also recommend the Chocolate Sin, a cake with alternating layers of mousse layered between a walnut-encrusted chocolate cake. It's impressive and massively chocolatey.

A La Crème servers recommend the Chocolate Sin cake
I also really like the Belgian Chocolate Cake, the store's version of a decadent chocolate cake. It's so dense that it sticks to the roof of my mouth and it's imbued with a deep chocolate flavor, not to mention that it also weighs a ton in one hand!