MANILA, Philippines—What can be done to ward off the summer heat?

Have a halo-halo!

In Taal, Batangas, my guide Dindo Montenegro took me to what he said was the best halo-halo in the place. It was under a huge tree that may have been an acacia.

The mix was just the ordinary kind, what is called commercially as “regular” without the special touches of ube halaya and leche flan. I think what made it memorable was the novelty of eating under a tree near the makeshift carinderia.

When my children were younger, weekends brought their aunts, uncles and cousins to our house. Because one of the ice plants nearby sold crushed ice by the sack, we always had a halo-halo merienda.

I prepared jars of the ingredients bought from the supermarket. I don’t think anyone seriously considers doing everything from scratch, save for the gulaman. There was the required evaporated milk, without which a halo-halo can never be authentic.

My sisters and I would reminisce about our halo-halo fix when we were kids. My parents used to play duckpin bowling with friends in one of the Quonset huts inside the University of the Philippines campus. We kept quiet throughout the matches because we knew we would be treated to the best cooler yet at the Little Quiapo restaurant.

I loved everything in it, but no sugar and just a little milk. My mother didn’t like the sweetened saba (cooking banana) because she felt they were always sour. One sister preferred mais con hielo. Another sister would order the regular tall glass, but what she really yearned for was halo-halo that could be had only on the shores of Bauang, La Union, our father’s hometown.

In a makeshift stand in the late afternoons of our annual vacation in Bauang, the vendor at the beach would concoct her fresh fruit halo-halo. A little mango, a little cooked saba, a little watermelon and—for my sister, the best ingredient of the mix—native melon.

I don’t know if the younger generation knows that particular fruit. It looks like a big zucchini, its inside colored yellow and with the same melon seeds that need to be scraped off. I never liked it because the meat was cottony (malabó) and bland.

But my sister still yearns for it and regrets not being able to find the variety in the market.

Asiong’s Carinderia

In Cavite recently where we went to research and photograph some of the food, we visited a restaurant where we experienced very good authentic Caviteño cooking some years ago.

It was great to see owner Sonny Lua again in his carinderia, Asiong, named after this father who started it.

The inside had become bigger and airier, although you’d have to sit near an electric fan to be cooled. We ate black squid pancit, menudo and bacalao, which really used salted dried labahita instead of cod. We were also there for dessert, and the halo-halo corner beckoned.

Sonny didn’t want to place the halo-halo in tall glasses because he said it’s easier to mix everything in wide-mouth bowls. I counted 16 ingredients for the mix, and most of those are what you could find in many places: sago and gulaman, munggo, white beans, nata de coco, kaong, camote, pinipig, macapuno, garbanzos, saba and langka. He even had a “uric acid” special version of the halo-halo, which eliminated all the beans.

The addition of cassava and yema made the mix different, although the toppings for the special are still ube halaya and leche flan. Yema, Sonny said, was what he substituted for pastillas de leche —something he probably learned from reading about Pampanga halo-halo. t’s because he can’t get a steady supply of the milk candy.

Two versions of Pampanga halo-halo are known for their extra ingredient of pastillas de leche. These can be found in Kabigting of Arayat, and Corazon’s in Angeles.

It is Razon’s that has caught the fancy of the Metro Manila market, having been successfully franchised in many commercial areas. Contrary to Cavite’s Digman halo-halo of several mixes, Razon’s—of Guagua, Pampanga—only has three elements: banana, white beans and leche flan redolent of dayap.

But the plus for many of its fans is its fine crushed ice—feathery soft and so cool, melting in the mouth together with the minimal halo.

For the Pampanga halo-halo places, just ask around the area. But Asiong Carinderia and Café exists in two places, so you must look for Sony Lua’s Asiong on 712 P. Paterno St. in Caridad, Cavite City.