Have you heard of this pasalubong from the City of Smiles, the city of Bacolod? The happy goodness is called Napoleones, a boxfull of golden-brown squares with frosting on top. Even if we’ve encountered this pasalubong only once in our entire life, we’ll try to describe it with the first three words that came to mind after our first bite.

Sweet

We’re totally clueless how a Napoleones is made but we think that the frosting on top — that translucent shiny substance on top of the brown bread — solidified after having been poured. We could be wrong, of course, on how the glaze was applied but we can never be wrong that it’s sugar. And that it’s very sweet. It’s like the glaze of the Choco-Dipped Doughnut of a huge coffeeshop chain, only more generously applied.

Crunchy

Again, we’ll rely on our culinary crystal ball. Based on how the bread looks (and feels) like, we believe it was prepared by pressing the dough into thin portions, folding and re-folding it a number of times to get layers of crunchy goodness.

Pasalubong

We have this theory about the Filipino’s love for pasalubong but we’ll save that for another day. Right now, it’s enough to say that the Napoleones, grouped together and neatly wrapped in a paper box and labelled Bobong’s, is a perfect pasalubong when passing by Bacolod.

So, there you go. Napoleones: sweet, crunchy pasalubong! [If you know more about Napoleones, tell us through the comment section below.]