Pangasinan’s Best
In terms of food pasalubong alone, Pangasinan offers a veritable feast. Entering the province, hawkers in Urdaneta and Mangatarem offer tupig or rice cakes cooked over coals. Bolinao and Anda offer binungey which are rice cakes cooked in bamboo tubes over open fire. Calasiao has the best-tasting glutinous rice cakes or the popular puto while the town of Mangaldan sells export quality peanut brittle. In Lingayen, you can buy “bagoong” products, bocayo and tamales. Alaminos and Dagupan cities and other coastal towns offer bangus or milkfish and your fill of your various seafoods. Try popular restuarants for your freshest taste of Pangasinan flavors.
Puto Calasiao
If you tell your friends you’re going to Pangasinan, get ready to hear a chorus of “Ayyyyy, puto calasiao!” Everyone wants a piece of these steamed rice cakes which are somehow softer and fluffier than any you’ll find in Manila. These snacks are so legendary that they have their own festival. Last year’s Calasiao Puto Festival, held in December, featured a month-long trade fair. There were also exhibits and cooking demos on the “1001 Ways to Serve Puto,” as well as pageants to decide the Puto King and Queen and the Miss Gay Puto Festival Queen.
Get yourself a kilo at the town of Calasiao, Pangasinan. Aside from the plain puto and traditional flavors like cheese and ube, you’ll find brightly colored puto flavored like pandan, banana and strawberry. Looking for the “best vendor” isn’t a problem. Just head to the town market, where a whole line of shops separate from the main area sell nothing but puto and other kakanin.
Bamboo Baskets
Places to Visit In Pangasinan
Pangasinan is one of the country’s most diverse provinces where you find an abundance of marvelous landscapes and natural wonders, warm polite and hospitable people with cultural roots in centuries of glorious history, and a way of life that is a delightful combination of tradition, innovation and creativity.
Amidst the fast advancing urban spread, only four hours away by land from Manila, lies Pangasinan, a vast territory of legendary surroundings, many of which remain virtually unknown to the outside.
In the best tradition of Pangasinan hospitality, you are invited to discover this unspoiled paradise—tranquil seas, golden beaches, spectacular coral reefs, majestic mountains, unexplored caves, hot and cold natural springs and many other diverse attractions that bring back the hearty feel of the countryside. Here, you will find old and charming towns, ancient churches, picture-book farmlands and coastal villages where you can thrill to deep-sea fishing and every conceivable water sports with the natives.
Minor Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary of Manaoag
For the many Roman Catholics in the Philippines, Our Lady of Manaoag in Pangasinan has been a place of refuge for those who are seeking miracles in their lives.
PANGASINAN'S HIDDEN BEAUTY 