Big Bite! the Northern Food Festival 2015

Celebrate Northern Cuisine at MarQuee Mall’s Big Bite!

Food fans gear up for MarQuee Mall’s Big Bite! The Northern Food Festival on October 16, 17 and 18. 

In partnership with Department of Tourism, Department of Trade and Industry, Angeles City Tourism Office, North Luzon Expressway and Lifestyle Network, Big Bite delights festival goers with food markets, "Sisig Festival", cooking demos, culinary cook-offs and live entertainment.

Now on its third year, the gastronomic feast will feature over 100 food merchants from Region I,II, III and the Cordillera Administrative Region with regional delights from condiments, spices to coffee and jams to local favorites such as the Ilocos empanada, bagnet, pastillas and longganisa.

Big Bite's main event highlight is the “Sisig Festival”. Sisig is the quintessential Kapampangan dish, traditionally made of pork parts, mixed with spices, served on a sizzling plate with a side of calamansi and chili peppers. Northern regions take part in the celebration by cooking their own version of sisig such as the bangus sisig from Pangasinan and dinakdakan from Ilocos. The “Sisig Festival” is a culinary spectacle of regional cuisine at its best. 

Boosting tourism in the North, Big Bite reinforces the city’s growing reputation as the culinary capital of the Philippines and is part of Angeles City’s Fiestang Kuliat, a month-long fiesta celebration in the city. 

Visitors will also see culinary masters Chef Sau del Rosario, Lifestyle Network’s “Chef Next Door” Jonas Ng and Center for Asian Culinary Studies founder Chef Gene Gonzales whip up northern favorites in the live cooking demonstrations. 

Competition heats up in the three-day cook-off among top culinary schools from the region. 

So come and celebrate the biggest gastronomical festival in MarQuee Mall’s Big Bite: The Northern Food Festival on October 16-18,2015. 

For more information, contact (045) 304-0110 to 11. Like and follow MarQuee Mall’s social networking sites, Facebook: facebook.com/MarQueeMall, Twitter: @MarQueetweets and instagram: @iloveMarQueemall.

PAG installed artworks to Marquee Mall's Big Bite! The Northern Food Festival

This image of Bulo'l, the Cordillera rice god, represents the Cordillera Autonomous Region (CAR). Materials used are carved Styrofoam covered with husked mountain brown rice.

Food art installation is another attraction to the three-day BIG BITE! The Northern Food Festival this coming October 17, 18, & 19, 2014 in the Marquee Mall of Angeles City, Pampanga. 

A replica of Bojeador lighthouse is installed to represent Region 1 (Ilocos Region).  Materials used are carved Styrofoam and dried tobacco leaves wrapped around the tower.

Fishing net with dried fishes represents Region 2 (Cagayan Valley). Installed art uses bamboo sticks, nylon nets, and real dried sardines

The fishnet and dried fishes is finally installed on the opening day of the BIG BITE (Oct. 17, 2014) with a bamboo raft and art trees with locally grown vegetables.

The artworks are the concepts of local artists from the Pampanga Arts Guild (PAG) with the participation of Filipino visual artists Leeroy New and Mikai Rodrigo. 

Installed artwork to represent Region 3 (Central Luzon) is a replica of Christmas lantern covered with Japanese paper ordinarily used in wrapping pastillas and candies.

On the opening day of  the BIG BITE on Oct. 17, 2014, what used to be the lone Christmas lantern of Central Luzon becomes a galore of local produce with bamboo table adorned artfully with woven young coconut palm and native delicacies    

Central Luzon, particularly in Pampanga, is known to be as the producer of duck eggs that eventually processed into balut and penoy. Central Luzon is the major supplier of duck eggs in Metro Manila, even in Pateros where the balut and penoy is popularly manufactured.

The artworks are installed in the 2nd year of Big Bite! to promote the different region's specialty dishes, food products, and food culture. 

You will discover and experience more about Pinoy foods and food culture  if you go to the Marquee Mall's the Big Bite! the Northern Food Festival.  See location map here to help you find the place.

 

The artwork of Leeroy New and Mikai Rodrigo they entitled as Qurales, is the artists' attempt to merge the concept of food, art, and landscape into one ephemeral  sculptural tableaux using edible medium. Its an alien plantlife that resembles sea creatures and serves as habitat for stylized cherubs and quirky invented animals.  Each figure is meticulously sculpted, shaped, and carved out of combined sugar, vegetables, and bread.     

Qurales takes the form of marine coral adorned with the artists' penchant for fantastical creatures and organic forms.  Materials used are fondant and baked bread impaled in stainless steel frame and stands on wooden base. 

The more elaborate version of the Qurales is presented to the open public on the opening day of the BIG BITE in Marquee Mall on Oct. 17, 2014. 

The Qurales  

Related posts:

• BIG BITE! is back this 2014 in Marquee Mall, Angeles City
• Wonderful foods and culinary treasures I found in the sneak preview of the second Big Bite! 
• The evolutions of Pinoy sisig and my food dictionary
• Sneak Preview of the BIG BITE! (2013) - There's more on the upcoming 3-day food festival
• Best of Northern food featured in MarQuee Mall’s Big Bite! (2013)

BIG BITE! is back this 2014 in Marquee Mall, Angeles City

Food writers, photographers, and cameramen from local and national media, along with some food bloggers, capture the live cooking demonstrations of Capampangan iconic dish, the classic pork sisig of Chef Emelita W. Galang with her son Chef Edwin Galang, and the modern innovation of sisig, the gourmet tuna sisig of Chef Sau del Rosario.        

The sneak preview of the 2nd BIG BITE! was launched in the Marquee Mall of Angeles City on October 1, 2014.  This northern food festival will actually be held on October 17, 18, and 19 this year. Save the date to taste and experience the treasured local food products and witness live cooking demonstrations of famous chefs. The location map, below, will help you find the place.

The event would showcase over 100 food stalls featuring local food products from the provinces of Pampanga, Bulacan, Ilocos, Baguio, Tarlac, Nueva Ecija, Zambales, Bataan, Pangasinan,  Cagayan, and La Union.

Related topics:

• PAG installed artworks to Marquee Mall's Big Bite! The Northern Food Festival

• Wonderful foods and culinary treasures I found in the sneak preview of the second Big Bite!

Culinary competitions among participants and live cooking demonstrations by renowned chefs are among the very interesting activities to watch.

 

The BIG BITE! is the annual food festival of northern Luzon. Now, on its second year, the Big Bite! will hold a three-day food festival from October 17 to 19, 2014 in partnership with the Department of Tourism (DOT), Department of Trade and Industry, Angeles Tourism Office, North Luzon Expressway (NLEX) Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), and the Lifestyle Network. 

From Metro Manila area, the best and fastest way in going to the BIG BITE! is through the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX). You can also take the Mc Arthur Highway (National Road) alongside NLEX.

Mr. Mark Sablan, the Senior Division Manager and General Manager of Marquee Mall, formally opens the Big Bite! preview.

On the opening day (October 17) of the Big Bite!, the ABS-CBN morning TV show, Umagang kay Ganda, will cover a live remote broadcast featuring firework display and the cooking of giant sisig with celebrity chefs.  Other activities would include the marching band and street dancers, art gallery (History of Sisig and Food Art Gallery), culinary cook-offs, live cooking demonstration, big buffet (your chance to partake the giant sisig), live entertainment, and food market.

You can check here a galore of foods we found last week in the sneak preview of the second Big Bite. There are more to expect in the three-day food festival on October 17, 18, and 19, 2014.  

The highlight of 2nd BIG BITE! northern food festival is sisig, the iconic dish of Pampanga and once hailed by a review of the New York Times as "arguably the greatest pork dish on earth." The former American executive chef, Anthony Bourdain, who later became an author and television personality, also described sisig as "one of the world's best beer drinking dishes."

In the sneak preview, Chef Emelita Wong-Galang demonstrated live the cooking of the classic Capampangan pork sisig.

The classic sisig Capampangan is popularly known across the country as the pork sisig.  It is also known by its other Capampangan name as the Cabalen sisig or the sisig pisngi at balugbug babi.  

Chef Emelita Wong-Galang, the founder of EWG Culinary Arts Studio, demonstrates live the cooking of classic Capampangan pork sisig assisted with her son, Chef Edwin Galang.

Also in the preview of the Big Bite! last October 1, 2014 is Chef Sau del Rosario demonstrating live his variation of sisig that uses tuna instead of pork.

Chef Sau del Rosario, demonstrated live his creation of modern variation of sisig that uses fish instead of pork.  He presented his innovative tuna sisig embellished with caviar and young sprouts of Chinese celery and purple flowers of butterfly pea. Chef Sau's gourmet version of tuna sisig is  called tuna sisig ravioli and pan-seared spiced tuna sisig steak

Chef Sau explains his choice of ingredients and for innovating his own version of tuna sisig as a way of reminiscing his life abroad where he could not easily find pig ears, snout, cheek or simply put into one as the maskara (face skin of pig) that he opted to use the widely available tuna meat instead of pork parts. 

Chef Sau putting on the final touch to his own version of tuna sisig.

His kind of seafood sisig can be also be justified as healthy and nutritive other than being gourmet. In my assessment, this combination of local and imported ingredients will surely spike up your libido. I never thought Chef Sau is cupid.

Chef Sau presents here his two versions of tuna sisig in one plate: the tuna sisig ravioli (left, above photo), which is fried dumpling wrapper filled with minced tuna, and pan-seared spiced tuna sisig steak (right, above photo) presented  as a pan-seared tuna cube steak with black caviar. The dish is embellished with purple flowers of butterfly pea (Clitoria ternatea, a.k.a. blue pea, Cordofan pea, or Asian pigeonwings), young sprouts of Chinese celery and chopped siling labuyo with a slice of fresh calamansi fruit. Going back to butterfly pea, the scientific name is so intriguing considering how it looks like and your thoughts that would come with it. Ahah, somebody is playing cupid here, no doubt.

Angeles City's Mayor Ed Pamintuan and lady Vice-Mayor Vicky Vega-Cabigting. She shows off her take of strawberry taho from Baguio City and he has the empanada Iloco from Laoag City.

The Angeles City mayor and his lady vice mayor.  

Ms. Ginger Conejero, 2006 Miss Philippines Earth runner-up and TV reporter/host, serves as the master of the ceremony to the preview of the 2nd Big Bite! Northern Food Festival. Mayor Ed Pamintuan of Angeles City giving thanks and formally closes the Big Bite preview with a short talk about the food festival.

The organizers and guests to the preview of the 2nd Big Bite! northern food festival.  

Big Bite! is Marquee Mall's way of supporting local and homegrown food products and concepts by giving the opportunity, showcase and make these products more available to the public.

The Marquee Mall and organizers of the Big Bite! The Northern Food Festival are inviting everybody to come and experience the biggest food festival in Luzon to be held in the Marquee Mall of Angeles City, Pampanga on October 17, 18, and 19, 2014.

Among the activities to expect in the food festival are the food market, Sisig Festival, Food Art Installation, street food aisle, culinary cook off, cooking demonstrations, live entertainments, fire works, free food sampling, and many more. 

The main characters to the preview of the 2nd BIG BITE! are (L-R) Chef Sau del Rosario (IT chef and celebrity endorser), Maricris Bernardino (Division Manager and General Manger of Marquee Mall), Javi Hernandez (Assistant Vice President of Ayala Land), Rowena Tomeldan (Vice President and Head-Operations and Support Services, Commercial Business Group, Ayala Land Inc.), Ms. Vicky Vega-Cabigting (Angeles City Vice-Mayor), Mr. Ed Pamintuan (Angeles City Mayor), Mr. Mark Sablan (Senior Division Manager and General Manager of Marquee Mall), and Ms. Emelita Wong-Galang (Founder of EWG Culinary Arts Studio).

Locator map of the BIG BITE. 

Related posts:

• PAG installed artworks to Marquee Mall's Big Bite! The Northern Food Festival
• Wonderful foods and culinary treasures I found in the sneak preview of the second Big Bite!
• The evolutions of Pinoy sisig and my food dictionary
• Sneak Preview of the BIG BITE! (2013) - There's more on the upcoming 3-day food festival
• Best of Northern food featured in MarQuee Mall’s Big Bite! (2013)