Angeles City—Food enthusiasts all over the world are invited to a “taste of Angeles” once the tourism industry here will be opened.
Known for its mouth-watering pork sisig, Angeles City is planning to reinforce the tourism industry by offering visitors an array of native foods and delicacies that originated in this city and nearby areas of Pampanga.
“We want to enliven tourism in our city and one effective way we can attract more tourists is to offer native Angeleño food,” said Mayor Carmelo Lazatin Jr.
He added that gastronomic or culinary tourism will serve as a shot in the arm to the dying food industry caused by the global coronavirus pandemic.
Lazatin said the city government is preparing for when the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases allows the full operation of the tourism industry, or when things finally settle down after the pandemic.
Executive Assistant IV Reina Manuel said they have coordinated with Angeles City Tourism Office to manage and iron out safety protocols of the different food establishments here
Gastro tourism is the exploration of food as the purpose of tourism. Today’s tourists consider food, alongside climate, scenery, and accommodation, as a vital element in choosing their next destination.
Dubbed as the Culinary Capital of the Philippines, Angeles City has always been a favored destination for foodies.
People go to the city to taste authentic Kapampangan food in various homegrown restaurants found in the city, including Angeles Fried Chicken, Kamalig, Susie’s Cuisine, Mila’s, Bale Dutung, Kambingan, and Toll House, to name a few.
Chief Adviser and Tactician IC Calaguas reminisced how the late Mayor Carmelo “Tarzan” Lazatin Sr. pioneered the celebration of the city’s annual Sisig Festival.
“He wanted to boast to the whole world that sisig is an original Angeleno dish,” Calaguas said.
The late celebrity chef and award-winning travel documentarian, Anthony Bourdain, even branded the city’s trademark dish sisig as “the best pork dish in the world.”
With the world transitioning to the new normal, Mayor Lazatin plans to strengthen the city’s gastro-tourism.
“We have a lot of food and dishes to be proud of here in Angeles. We just need to improve our promotional campaign, so more people are aware of the food experience we offer here in the city,” Lazatin said.