ILOILO CITY, Philippines—There will be more than enough servings for lovers of Iloilo's famed La Paz batchoy on January 22 as makers of the savory noodle dish eye a world record in cooking the biggest batchoy bowl.

Around 3,500 liters of batchoy will be cooked in public at the La Paz district plaza, according to city tourism officer Ben Jimena, who spoke with the Philippine Daily Inquirer in a telephone interview on Monday.

The popular dish, which was first prepared nearly 80 years ago at the La Paz market, has become the city's most popular dish and is already available in franchise stores in shopping malls nationwide.

The dish is made from a mixture of meat broth and yellow noodles topped with slices of pork meat and innards, fried chopped garlic, spring onions, fermented fish paste (guinamos) and crushed pork cracklings (chicharon).

The dish will be prepared at 10 a.m. at the plaza on a stainless steel bowl measuring two meters in width and one meter in height, according to Jimena.

Organized by Deco's Batchoy and the Iloilo Convention and Visitors Bureau, the activity is part of the 2009 celebration of the Dinagyang Festival.

Edgar Sia II, Deco's Batchoy owner and ICVB president, said they would like to get into the Guinness Book of Records for the biggest bowl of La Paz Batchoy.

Sia said the volume of the dish to be prepared would be enough for at least 400 servings. He said 300 servings would be for street children while the rest would be for guests.

The preparation will take from three to four hours and will involve seven cooks from Deco's. The contents of the giant bowl will then be transferred to regular bowls, according to Sia.

"The La Paz Batchoy has always been identified with Iloilo and Ilonggos so we thought of this activity as part of the Dinagyang festival," said Sia.

The weeklong Dinagyang festival, celebrated every fourth weekend of January to commemorate the Christianization of the natives and to honor the Señor Sto. Niño (Holy Child Jesus), culminates on January 23 and 24 with the Ati-Ati tribe contest. The festival has been voted several times by tourism officers as the country's best festival.

Sia said they invited representatives from the Guinness World Records to witness the event. They were also seeking official recognition from the world record body for the activity.

Jimena said they planned to make the giant bowl, which was custom-made for P170,000, as a marker in the district plaza.