It certainly looks like this is one of those years where there will be a bumper crop of lomboy or duhat in Cebu! Last year lomboy were quite scarce, but the year before that, we offered duhat shakes for the first time, and sold out every time we had them on offer!
A duhat shake has a fantastic deep purple color, a delicious and unusual flavor, it’s packed with all kinds of good vitamins and minerals, and it is surprisingly unlike the sometimes odd astringent reaction one’s tongue has to the tannins in the fresh fruit.
Not only is it a stunning, delicious and thirst quenching beverage, it also means you are supporting backyard growers with some unexpected income. We have scouts scouring the outskirts of the city for fresh supplies of lomboy daily for the short 3-4 week fruit-bearing season. Dozens of hands are on deck to hand pit the fruit and we portion and freeze the fruit to make into shakes/smoothies. We have them as a special summer drink offering at Zubuchon for as long as supplies last!
The weather is starting to heat up, and duhat shakes temporarily join our line up of all fruit, all natural, guadalupe mango, kamias or iba, pineapple mint, and red grape shakes. In a few more months, when santol is back in season, we will also have santol juice as well!
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Wow! My mouth watered as soon as I saw the bukag of duhat. Although I did not eat a lot of this when I was growing up, I do remember well how it tastes. It’s so good shaken with salt in a tupperware. How much do they generally cost per kilo? A few years ago, my sister’s neighbor in Alabang had a duhat tree that had branches leaning over to my sister’s property. The neighbor said we could help ourselves to the fruits. They were humongous and plump and sweet! I would love to eat some of these lovely fruit again!
Zubuchon Facebook posted this yesterday.. Obviously only a teaser of this, MM..
Wow, the smoothies look all so yummy! MM, you should get a canvas print of that line-up and decorate your store with it. Ganda!
And props to you and your crew for always keeping the Zubuchon menu innovative and fresh – no wonder your customers are loyal and spreading the word! :)
I will visit Cebu again someday and will order each and every flavor of the smoothies on offer. Yay!
that last picture is stunning!
I agree with millet, what a beautiful picture! A juice rainbow.
Duhat seems to be one of those fruits that have fallen by the wayside, to more “profitable” fruits – more productive , less perishable, more transportable ones- as well as imports.It’s really great that you’ve placed attention once again on these fruits like the duhat. Along the way, you’ve helped backyard growers, and showcased the diversity of our local produce, MM. Maybe farmers there are already planting more duhat, as well as other less-known local fruits?! I’m looking forward d to more local fruits you will help us all rediscover!
Gej, so far we like kamias, duhat and santol when they are abundant or in season… It just seems so obvious to try and use more local stuff in our menu, even though that goes against everything that says standardize, make it the same every single time, make it predictable, make it look exactly the same that is the path to success for chain restaurants with customers who don’t really look out for the little things like locally sourced produce… We have planted some 50 kamias trees on our property and the two year old ones are already starting to bear fruit… :) We have tried caimito shakes (delicious) and even guyabano shakes, but finding enough sources of these fruits with a reasonably reliable pulp output is hard, even if for just 3-4 weeks in season…
i wonder why pinoys are not big on fresh juices and shakes. all over southeast asia, one can find fresh juice bars offering everything from the simplest, single-fruit juices to the more complex multi-fruit/veggie/yogurt combinations. here, the default drink aside from sodas would be the hyper-sweetened “juice drinks” that contain very little real juice, if at all. i’ve seen longan, tamarind, macopa, native berries of all types, jackfruit, jicama, native plum, native citrus, etc.all made into juice.
kudos to you, MM, for making this effort.
wow marketman! i hope more businesses will follow your model – promoting our local produce in the dining scene. It will really help our farmers and the environment as well. It’s a pity that you ca’nt buy much of our local fruits in the market..mas marami pang apple at orange kesa local fruits.
In the same way, we consumers should patronize our local produce more. This will be win-win situation as we are sure to get fresh and nutritious foods every time.
i would love to have fruit shakes and smoothies from a lot of different fruits except tiesa or canistel – amazing color, hideous flavor. Hahaha. Give me a durian smoothie instead :) Millet is responsible for making me appreciate durian.
My students (in medical school) want pizza for our last day of classes.
I asked, “Since when has pizza become your comfort food?”
Someone answered. “Since birth, sir!”
“What about some suman or ginataan instead?”
A resounding “No! We want pizza!”
ntgerald, sad but so true. Apparently a year or so ago, at a very well known culinary school, students were asked for a show of hands as to how many had made sinigang broth from scratch, and less than 15% or so raised their hands. Fully 85% of these future chefs, in the their junior or senior year of school, had never bothered to cook a sinigang with all natural ingredients. That’s really, really sad.
Really admirable that you showcase our native fruits in your menu and support small growers at the same time.
Have you tried making shakes using chico MM? They’re really good! The Vietnamese have this and they’re really refreshing.
Lee, Davao is currently flooded with durian – it’s P20/kilo, and it’s on every streetcorner! mangosteen is at P30/kilo. tara na!
Hi MM. I love your iba shake. Never tried duhat. I can just imagine the labor intensive process of removing the seeds!
Corrine, yes, it’s a royal pain in the … millet, arrggh, if mangosteen drops to PHP25 a kilo in Cebu, I will personally cook up batches of mangosteen jam, which we haven’t made for three years due to high prices of the fruit! Nadia, yes, I have made chico shakes, but haven’t quite got it right. EJ, we have done that from the start, and it’s part of how we choose to operate. :)
Thanks, MM, for this gorgeous post. This most elusive fruit, lomboy, has never been in season on sporadic visits to the Philippines – is it because it is mainly grown in backyards and not cultivated commercially?? O o o o h for the taste of lomboy – rainier cherries somehow pale in comparison.
Duhat along with sineguelas, definitely one of my childhood faves during summer! I remember putting them in a bowl with water and leaving it in the fridge for a bit, then straining them and don’t forget the salt! :)
I have never had a duhat. I would love to try this smoothie. Smoothies are my middle name. :)
I just returned from a vacation in the Philippines last week and one of my friends saw duhat in the market and purchased about half a kilo for me. They were soft, sweet and juicy. Needless to say, I ‘inhaled’ all of them! After being deprived of fresh fruits for a long time, I literally indulged in them for the past 3 weeks. Can’t wait to go back!!
MM, have you tried using olive/cherry pitter to remove the seeds? It will be faster and less messy, and hopefully less waste.
I feel so blessed that our duhat tree has been providing us with beautiful fruit for two years now. The purple stains on the flagstones are worth it. :)
Nice suggestions among the comments. MM , are avocadoes and balimbing available in Cebu? It looks like it’s avocado season now in Southern Luzon (it would add a striking green hue to your smoothie colors). Balimbing might be worth trying too.
Just made guacamole. Really good.I noticed we’ve had very good quality of avocados and guyabano for 3 yrs now unlike before.
MM…have you tried making sorbetto using agar agar or gelatine? I cannot get enough of the melon sorbetto when we went to Italy 2 years ago and I found the best melon sorbetto in Florence…nothing compares to that really tiny store that made it. Had been my obsession ever since we came back that I had to resort to planting the right melon last year…the charentais variety did it…together with agar agar ….brought back memories of Florentian melon sorbetto…had EXACTLY the same texture!!!!!!
so, maybe duhat or camias sorbetto? …bet it might taste like blackberry or cassis sorbetto! Would make a really nice plate…quenelle shaped camias, mango, duhat sorbetto
Millet….may I ask what fruits are usually in season sometime around May?
MM,
hi, been a avid fan for years but this is my first time to comment, thank you so much for posting, as you not only give joy to the readers but also to the farmers of our land.
anyway can i ask the recipe for this duhat shakes? so we could try it at home =).
rhiza
This post reminds me of childhood memories of stuffing ourselves with lomboy until our stomachs ache, or sprinkling rock salt on a bowl of duhat to counter the acidity. i’m going to cebu this may and i’m looking forward to sampling your restaurant’s lomboy shake
Tried the duhat shake last night and it was deeelicious! Unfortunately, I had already had too much of the kamias shake to have any more. I’m hoping to catch some in the airport if you’re serving it there, too.
I second Gej’s suggestion on balimbing shake.
Ah balimbing! I miss it SO much; we used to have a tree in my childhood home in CDO. Alas, it is SO difficult to find in Manila. :(
Gej and Kasseopeia, not a lot of balimbing in Cebu markets either. Marla, hope you and R enjoyed the birthday dinner at Zubu… David, I hope they still have it in stock in May! rhiza, recipe is in an old post, just google “duhat shake market manila”…
So happy to have tried this Duhat Shake last Friday night at your Escario Central branch! It didn’t have that “maanta” mouthfeel and taste which I usually associate with Duhat. I was hoping to have it again yesterday at the airport, before going back to Manila, but of course, it wasn’t on offer.
Hello MarketMan, how do you remove the pits efficiently on so many little fruits and how do you remove the astringent taste of the duhat from the shakes?
Oh we certainly did! Our son, r, came along and said that was his favorite meal of the entire trip. I think it had something to do with the chicharon bulaklak and fried rice…
I had duhat or lomboy like 3 weeks ago. My cousin got some from a neighbor. Boy it was so good. A lot of childhood memories came back because of it! :)
Hi, MM! I was in Cebu last weekend and I was so happy I got my zubuchon fix! However, I forgot to order the lumboy shake when we ate at the Escario branch. I was hoping they also serve the shake at the airport but they only had mango shake available last Sunday. Sayang. :(
Mimac and Blaise, will have to see if they can offer it at airport snack bar. We have such limited space, and an extra blender glass container would be required… :) Angelo, pit removal is by hand. If fruit is just ripe, and large, squeezing the duhat sometimes works, but most of the time a dull paring knife is necessary. It is VERY labor intensive and probably why not many places have the fruit shake on their menus…
Lomboy has long been absent in our summers here in Iloilo–what has happened kaya?
MM, so looking forward to checking out the shakes at Zubuchon. I have been looking out for the Z at Mango Square and Escario but could not see either one, yet.
how do you make santol juice, marketman? just curious :-)
Mike, santol juice here. Farida, On Escario, Zubuchon is near McDonald’s and Jollibee, right near 7-11. All good landmarks…