Sunday, January 24, 2010

Century Bangus

Last weekend, I was invited to an event by Century Pacific Group or locally known as Century Tuna Bangus. I had low expectation of the event but decided to go to support the team organising it and well, its free lunch and I get to visit the Wack Wack Golf club. Its a pretty nice club in the middle of the city and you know how I love greenery on the weekends.

But I was actually pretty glad I went because it really was a good event where many people had a good time but I discovered that these guys may be on to something.

Century was basically a tuna and sardine canning company. Tuna and Sardine are wild stock fish and everybody who knows their seafood, fish stock everywhere is in rapid decline. For the ignorant, before the 20th century there were basically a dozen major fish-stock in the world. We are down to basically 1.5 major fish-stock at 21st century and rate of decline is even faster.

Gensan-26

The new product Century is marketing is Bangus or Milkfish which is a aquaculture product and hence renewable. Bangus don't grow to the same size as Salmons but you can find them as big as Spanish Mackerals.

Milkfish (Chanos chanos)

Being an avid seafood consumer especially fish, I don't generally like aquacultured product. They generally don't taste as good as wild ones and I can often tell the difference between a wild Salmon and a farmed one.

Bangus taste a bit like Salmon but honestly the taste is not as strong. I eat Salmon sashimi but generally I don't like cooked Salmon. Well, Bangus has sort of the same taste and I eat Bangus sinigang quite often, the local vinegar-lime soup here but I prefer other fish especially garouper(lapu-lapu), marlin, mahi-mahi which are common here.

Well, the Century group here showed me a thing of two. I LOVED the food they served. There was Bangus Tocino, Beer Battered Bangus, Bangus with Pasta and olive oil, Bangus with light Mustard, Bangus Panini sandwich, and Bangus spring-roll. ALL the food was really really good. It taste so much better than Tuna or Salmon. It did not have the strong aroma you associate with Tuna or Salmon.

Century Bangus Panini

Century Bangus Tocino

Century Beer Battered Bangus

Century Premium Boneless Bangus Pasta

Bangus is more expensive than Tuna but its cheaper than Salmon. Given its flexibility and taste, I say the product is a very good value proposition. I was going to suggest to the CEO they do a Bangus Sinigang Soup or Chowder to compete with Campbell Soup. I would buy it. They could do a Bangus Teriyaki (my favourite way to eat Salmon). I also wondered how a Cajun-style blackened Bangus Fillet taste like. A Bangus Jambalaya certainly works and although that would be more expensive than using cat-fish, it should taste better.

filler_07

I am looking forward to experimenting with Bangus in my own cooking. For one thing, I am switching to Bangus sandwich instead of Tuna for lunch... Masala Curry Bangus Sandwich?

No comments: