Monday afternoon I finally manage to make it to the Picnic Grove, something of a local landmark.
The grove is an area of land set aside as a kind of wilderness garden with a nature trail and a large area of sheltered picnic tables for which you pay PP150 to use for a lunchtime or evening meal.
People come here in quite large groups bringing copious quantities of food and grills or barbecues to cook with. I wonder along the nature trail and take photos of the view and the various plants that I don't recognise (i.e. most of them) and anything else which catches my eye.
The picnic grove tumbles away into rough ground towards the steep slope down to Lake Taal and there are some stunning views of boardwalks disappearing into the clouds.
Later in the evening a huge tropical storm blows in preceeded by eery thunder-less lightning making the whole of the Lake Taal basin visible in flashes of purple and blue.
While the storm lashes down, I'm sitting in a restaurant eating Pork Adobo (large chunks of fatty pork in soy sauce braised until caramelised) with a side helping of the usual chili dressing.
Chili is pronounced 'seely' round here. The sauce is something you make for yourself while you wait for your food to arrive. You'll be given a small bowl with four or five small limes and a couple of bird's eye chilis. The limes will have had their tops sliced off and you squeeze them, they're soft like large grapes, into the bowl and mash in the chillis.
Then use the pungent juice to season whatever you're eating!
The resturant doesn't do pudding but it is the local distribution point for Colette's Buko Pies. There's a pile of these, still warm, sitting on the serving hatch and locals are dropping in on their way home from work to pick them up.
Buko Pie is something of a local delicacy. It's a flaky pastry case filled with slices of young coconut (buko) which has a texture a little like cooked eating apple and nothing at all like the coconut meat I'm used to. Anyway, the pies are delicious and probably lethal in terms of calories...
