Great meals in Cebu make for happy tourists

A COOKING demo for San Miguel Foods and the Australasia Shooting competition again gave me the opportunity to visit Cebu, the island of food and prosperity.

As we landed, I couldn’t help notice the number of tourists Cebu has. The place didn’t seem to be experiencing the slump evident in the rest of the country. Our stay brought hope for the future of our rich land.

A major part of our agenda was our survey of dining places. Our first visit was to a restaurant called Abuhan. It is one of the oldest dining places in the city. We had some Cebuano pochero which is like our bulalo with fresh corn and labong.

The chunks of sticky and tender beef clung to the marrow filled bones. With some patis and crushed sili, it was a killer with steamed rice.

I also enjoyed their Bami, which is like our version of pancit canton, but with various kinds of noodles. Great meal.

The next day, our friends Alex and Lyn Ranola took us to this new seafood restaurant near Shangri-La, Seafood Market and Restaurants. As you enter, there are displays of various fresh seafoods that you can choose from.

We had a salt water tilapia served with gata (Sampedro), Takobo or giant clam which was chopped and made into a sour and spicy kinilaw, baked fresh scallops with cheese, spicy giant crab, garlic-fried tanguigue tail and tuna panga.

There wasn’t anything fancy in the preparation but everything we had was sea-fresh. Taste is different when it comes like this. The restaurant is right over water with a view of the sea. Nice, clean air!

Next evening was dinner at Café Laguna, where we had a delicious meal of Laksa (puso ng saging with gata), Batchoy Laguna which is a soup of innards with misua, and dinuguang manok. With garlic rice, it was divine!

I have yet to try a lechon de leche which a friend, Ina Choa claims is the best of Cebu. I’ll report my "findings" soon.

I believe that food is an important part of a place’s tourist attractions.

Cebu has that!

Happy eating!