This is my first attempt at Chicken Inasal…not so bad but I have a feeling it’s far from the real thing, which I have yet to try.  The real thing is found in Bacolod,  capital city of Negros Occidental province in the Visayas region of the Philippines.  ”Inasal” is actually an Ilonggo word which refers to the grilling method of cooking.

Spouse and I went to the Bacolod Chicken Inasal outlet at the Greenbelt Mall in Makati a couple of years ago and he just went gaga over their chicken.  Everytime we had to go out to eat he would give me this goofy grin and suggest, “Bacolod chicken?”

Filipinos have this thing for trying things their own way (read: “tancha” which is Tagalog for guesswork)  when it comes to local dishes. It’s always a big help when you’ve tried a dish in their place of origin.  These days, all you need is enough people who actually come from a certain region of the Philippines writing about their food and posting it on the internet.  Oh, but I dearly hope to someday go to Bacolod city and try the real thing.

Blogs authored by fellow Pinoys are my best source of information, not necessarily recipes.  News items or write-ups from food columnists in Philippine broadsheets now online are also a good source of information.

Actually, it was a post from this Philippine food blog, Eat Matters, that got me thinking of experimenting on this dish.  But it was this recipe that caught my eye, also from a Filipino blogger. And it was this  column written by food writer Heny Sison that convinced me to go ahead and try it.