Carbon Market: Betamax, Still on Sale

Isaw

The skewer I had at Carbon was isaw: chicken or pig intestines folded back and forth onto a stick and grilled. Mine was chicken.

I had expected something like horumon, the grilled offal of Japanese barbecue: chewy, and a little funky. It was much closer to ordinary meat, and there was nothing funky about it at all.

A little nervous

I’d read quite a bit about Carbon, much of it about safety. I went with my driver, feeling a little nervous.

It was a market, and everyone behind a stall was selling something. They all talked to me, cheerfully.

Carbon is one of Cebu City’s oldest markets. The name, it is said, comes from coal, kept here for the trains in the early 1900s, not from anything on the grills.

Then my driver recommended something to eat.

It was tuslob buwa, which means, roughly, “dip in the bubbles”. Pork brain and liver are cooked down in a shallow pan until the sauce thickens and froths, and you tear off pieces of puso, rice cooked in a pouch woven from coconut leaves, and dip them in while it is still bubbling.

My stomach was already feeling heavy. I had the mixed seafood instead: shellfish and corn, out of a big pan, and very good. At Jayvin’s BBQ, the board listed it at 120 pesos. Most of the other dishes were stews, at 50 or 60.

Of all the places I went in Cebu, this was where I felt closest to the city’s everyday life, and it was a lot of fun.