The Fresh Catch

To experience the local culture, take a visit to the wet market. Part of the local day-to-day life is to go to the wet market to buy fresh seafoods, vegetables and meat usually in the early morning or in the afternoon.  Locally known as "mercado" (Spanish term for market), every community has at least one.  Usually it is smelly and wet from the melted ice used to keep the seafood cool but there is something about the mercado that you always miss. Aside from the low prices, you get to experience the food and the local way of life everyday.

The Buaya Wet Market is quite popular for the variety of choices.  Some seafoods are not available in the smaller markets within the area.

Fresh meat stalls 

Choices of exotic fresh seafoods lined along the street

Edible seaweeds.  LEFT PHOTO:  Locally known as lukot, a green noodle-like secretions of sea hare,  is best eaten as a ceviche-style salad or cooked with vegetables in fish broth.  RIGHT PHOTO:  The lato, a green seaweed with grape-like formations attached to a stem. It can be eaten ceviche-style or just a dip in a good coconut vinegar with a dash of salt.  Both are sold at P10 per small container.

A vendor cutting sea cucumbers, skinned and cleaned,  to small pieces. It's cooked ceviche style and a good partner for grilled foods --- price is P30 per small container.

LEFT PHOTO: Aninikad, a small cone shell,  is cooked with vegetable soup and can be eaten only with a pin or needle to get the meat inside the shell; sold at P20 each small container.   RIGHT PHOTO: The swaki or sea urchin gonads, sold in rhum bottles, are flesh taken out from sea urchins. It is rich and creamy with a strong ocean scent, and eaten sushi style with lemon; sold at P50 each bottle

Fish vendors along the streets

Or in the assigned fish stalls inside the fish market

You can buy slices of high-grade fish too, prices between P150 - P250 per kilo in the stalls inside. Think of sashimi or other culinary delights for that special fish fillets... how about a tasty fish broth for the sliced head and tail?  Yummy! 

Fruit stalls.  Going bananas!

A mini grocery store in the market... vegetables, spices, salt, oil, noodles and other kitchen condiments.  Vegetables and spices are quite pricey in the open markets in Mactan --- vendors usually get their stocks from Carbon Market. However, supermarkets only sell in packs while you can buy a piece in the merkado.

How about some sodium-packed diet?   LEFT PHOTO:  Wide array of dried fish... crispy fried and dipped in vinegar with chili. Best eaten with cold rice "bahaw" and kinamot style (with hands).  Burrrp!   RIGHT PHOTO:  The legendary ginamos, salted and fermented anchovies, is best served with squeezed lemon, chili and slices of tomatoes as appetizer.  Locals love to eat ginamos with boiled sweet potato or boiled green saba banana.  Both are salty and has a vivid smell.

 

Where do you do your grocery shopping these days?  If you love the adventure and the ocean smell, plus the extra savings, the wet market is the best place for you.

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HOW TO GET THERE:

Take a multicab ride with Maribago/Soong sign. Tell the driver to stop at the "Mercado sa Sac", the old name for the Buaya Market. If you're driving your own car, there's a small private parking area a few meters from turning right at Ibo road.  The parking area is on the left side and charges P15 everytime you park.

WHEN IS THE BEST TIME TO GO THERE:

The freshest catch and a variety of choices are available in the afternoon between 3pm-4pm.  Exotic foods are already sold out if you go there late.

Note:  The largest wet market in the island is the Opon Public Market.