Fruity Fruity Davao

As soon as I told Mamu about my trip to Davao her constant reminder is “don’t forget my suha.” I was looking forward to the mangosteen and my friends wanted lanzones from Camiguin. A trip to the fruit market would definitely be a part of the itinerary. 

As it turns out, the grocery had its fill of Davao’s produce packed and ready to eat. We tried the papayas, melons and pomelo. Everything was fresh and ripe except for the melons. I enjoyed snacking on the sweet and juicy pomelo during our whole stay.
Finally we all went to market. I forgot the name of the market but it was huge! The fruit market alone was several blocks. I had a blast walking around and taking pictures.

It was suha galore!   

You can also buy colorful sweets made from Davao's fruits (pomelo, mangosteen, durian, etc.)

 The whole street was lined with mangosteen.  Ironically, it's not even mangosteen season. 

Honeycomb from a vendor of pure honeybee.

 Like in any market, the best thing to do is look for the best produce, ask for the best price and haggle, haggle, haggle. Here are some of the tips we got: Apparently, the best pomelo brand is Golden, these are priced a little higher but the quality is guaranteed. Then again this is Davao, I mean what are the chances of getting bad pomelo? One vendor told us not to get mangosteen from Jolo as these were smaller and less sweeter than their Davao counterpart. My friend bought a lot from a vendor and as a token of thanks she was given a free fruit. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was green and spiny, similar to langka only the spines are softer. Inside are a lot of white sop like atis only bigger, like twenty times bigger than the biggest atis I ever saw. The vendor said this fruit is called marang. It has a particular pungent smell that’s kind of hard of describe. You eat it the way you eat atis. The sop is fleshy and milky white. It tasted sweet and exotic, sort of a cross between a langka and a very mild durian only it had a very cottony soft texture. Not really my type of fruit. All in all it was a very sweet trip to the market.