OUR NATIVE COOKING TOUR is a delightful way to get to know our heritage. You get to know much about a place by what they cook. Discover the bounty of fresh water fish from our seven lakes and experience how these are caught.
San Pablo, Laguna, is a jewel of southern Luzon. It has a rich cultural history and a way of life shaped by coconut plantation living as well as by the amazing presence of seven crater lakes. It is also a city in transition—rapidly modernizing yet also earnestly preserving its past.
You can choose from two types of tours: hands-on cooking tours and educational demo tours.
Option 1: Lake Pandin Native Cooking Tour
Join the tour and get a glimpse of the culture and geography of our hometown through the food that we cook and serve.
- Trip to Lake Pandin (6:00AM): We begin with walking tour to Lake Pandin where we will get on a raft to catch an early morning harvest of fresh shrimp, bakuli, and tilapia. Here, we will also meet the inspiring women of Lake Pandin who, having grown up near the lake, now protect and preserve it. We will take the fish we have harvested from the lake and cook them at Casa San Pablo.
- Sampaloc Lake Viewing (9:30 AM): On our way back from Lake Pandin, we will stop at Sampaloc lake, the biggest of San Pablo’s seven lakes, and see the rehabilitation efforts being done there.
- Video Presentation and Merienda (10:00 AM): We will give you an overview of San Pablo native cooking through a short video documentary which you can watch while enjoying our classic San Pablo buko pie.
- Cooking Demo (11:00 AM): Our native kusinero will demonstrate how to prepare three dishes from the Lake Pandin catch.
- Hand-on Cooking (11:30 AM): Classes are completely hands-on, encouraging you to practice rural Filipino cooking techniques. You and your friends will have your own cooking stations patterned after nipa hut kitchens with a banggerahan and native pots. Our kusinera-instructors will guide you through the recipes step-by-step as you cook.
- Lunch (1:00 PM): At the end of the class, a delicious buffet meal, which will include the dishes you prepared, will be set up for lunch in our cozy dining room.
- Minimum of 4 pax.
- Rate is P3,500++ per head inclusive of ingredients
Option 2: Lake Catch Cooking Demo
- Our cooking demo begins with a mini-lecture on the importance of coconut in the history of San Pablo, Laguna and to our cuisine.
- Cooking demo will show the cooking techniques for preparing gata and cooking ginataang hipon and pinaputok na tilapia.
- The cooking demo is usually one hour and a half long.
- Rate is P2,000++ per head.
2013 Tour Schedule
Special tour schedules can be arranged for families or big groups.Get more information on our Casa San Pablo Native Cooking Tour Coconut module here.