Salcedo Village Market
Fairly well-known in Manila, the Salcedo Village market offers weekend shoppers the chance to buy fresh produce at relatively affordable prices. All the stuff here has been organically grown and completely free of chemicals and is bought by strong, athletic-looking people with rosy cheeks that closely resemble the fruits they are buying.
Actually I'm not really sure why the shoppers are so happy because they're basically buying unwashed flora that has been lovingly raised in knee-deep horse dung, resulting in a kilo of fruit yielding only about 900 grams of undigested matter, if you know what I mean.
Be that as it may, the market itself is rather attractive, with a quaint 'village' atmosphere that makes shopping rather pleasant despite the fact that the market opens at an unearthly 7 am on Saturday and closes at noon. Apart from fruits and veggies, one can buy plants and also a great variety of cooked food - pastas, bakes, Filipino delicacies, savouries, you name it! All the aromas mingle together to actually make your tastebuds tingle and it is a very good idea to save breakfast for the market, where you can indulge yourself to your heart's content.
The market has recently extended its timings to 4 pm to cater to the increased demand near Christmas. People actually come all the way from Alabang, which is over an hour's drive away and accessible only via a toll road!
In case you want to take a closer look at the variety of goodies available, take a look at this epic, five-part series (read the entries between Oct 10 and 15th) on the subject!
posted by Unknown at
2:27 PM
4 Comments:
I am sure that the Salcedo Village Market Traders Association will give you a Platinum Plus Priority pass so that you will get a pack of prunes free for every 2 Kilos of Veggies purchased :)
What about an entry on the shopping bags in that market; That would be awesome.
You need to remember that “The fabric of a consumer culture is best represented by the fabric of the shopping bag used”
By
inirs, at 4:21 PM
Srini, for Philippines, that would be plastic. Not sure what that says for the consumer culture, but it seems to be pretty close to the truth! :)
An interesting point to note here is the gay abandon with which people dispense plastic bags here. You could get every individual potato bagged separately if you really wanted it. No environment-friendly nation, this!
Vibhu, what else could I do but gape at people in a vegetable market! When you've seen one carrot, you've seen 'em all.
By
Unknown, at 10:05 AM
Hey - I go to this market most weeks with friends. A Pinoy friend who lives a block away introduced us to it. It is fabulous - the only way to get fruit and veggies that don't go black and festy a day after buying them. And yummy breakfast...
Makes getting out of bed at such an ungodly hour on Saturdays totally worth it. I may have passed you there...
I am loving your blog, because it seriously looks like I could have written it - I read it going "oh yeah, that happened to me". I have to figure out how to link it now...
By
Kate, at 10:17 AM
Glad you like it. I guess all expats would have broadly similar experiences but it's great fun reading about the same things through another's viewpoint!
And thanks for the link!
By
Unknown, at 4:10 PM
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