Will you please stand up??? (Image from icanhascheezburger.com)
Today, I encountered a Filipino dish I have NEVER EVER heard about or tasted (at least to my knowledge). I am now a Chicken Halang-halang virgin no more…
Since I have never ever heard of this dish, I then asked the kind Filipino waitress from which province / region this hails from. She knowingly smiled and said “Bicol, madam.”, a province known for its spicy and coconut based dishes. I shrugged and figured she was right because it was a rich, creamy spicy coconut dish: tiny chicken cubes and chopped string beans swimming in a thick, spicy mustard colored coconut cream sauce. It actually looked very similar to the Gising-gising. Please do not ask me for a picture of what I ate because I was a bad blogger and failed to take some photos 
Of course, being the curious foodie that I am, I then googled “chicken halang-halang” and read posts from here, here, here and here. According to these posts, the chicken halang-halang is NOT from Bicol, but rather from the Visayas region. So where is the real origin of this dish? Or is this dish like the adobo, the inihaw, or the longganisa, which is ubiquitous across the Philippines but has minor tweaks in flavor profile depending on the province?
Somebody?
Anybody?
Hellooooooooooo!
Can the real Chicken Halang-halang please stand up?!?
Delirious about delicious,
Didi
