We are new to Cebu City and love to explore and know more about Cebu's lifestyle. One way of knowing it is to taste the island’s delicacies – every region in the Philippines has one, I supposed. We ignored going to Malls and fastfood resto, as we want to know why people love Cebu than Manila.
Sai Gon Quan Restaurant
Did I say we ignored the malls? Well, not really because our host (Salazar College of Science and Institute of Technology) brought us to Parkmall for lunch. The Dean of the College of Maritime Studies was a personal friend of the owner of Sai Gon Quan Restaurant and he wants us to try some excellent and authentic Vietnamese cuisine. He said the restaurant’s cook and waitresses are residents of Vietnam who migrated to Cebu, therefore Sai Gon Quan Resto can really boasts of authentic Vietnamese cooking.
We ordered Goi Cuon (fresh spring rolls with shrimps and pork) and Sai Gon Quan’s special salad with noodle and pork. They got a perfect shabu-shabu and a lot of other delicious stuff. I don’t usually have beer for lunch but the food is perfect together with iced-cold San Mig Light.
Eat-all-you-can Buffet at Royal Concourse
Lots of eat-all-you-can restaurants have mushroomed in Manila but they can really hurt your wallet. That was why I was really surprised to discover very cheap eat-all-you-can restaurants in Cebu. We tried a very cheap buffet dinner on our first night but everybody was so hungry we didn’t even checked the name of the resto and – guess what – we didn’t even took pictures. That’s how hungry we are.
At lunchtime on our second day, our host school brought us to Royal Concourse. It is a nice restaurant along Gorodo Avenue in Cebu City. It looks simple outside, but awesome things are within the place. They serve highly satisfying eat-all-you-can dishes, appetizers, lechon, seafoods and refreshing fruit shakes for only 178 pesos per person. I just hope Royal Concourse has a branch in Manila.
Seafoods Treat at Sutukil
They say the Sutukil remains a must-have treat when in Cebu, so we really search for the place for dinner even if it is almost an hour drive from downtown Cebu. The sutukil restaurants are located near the Mactan Shrine therefore it’s a food trip cum historical tour for us.
We can no longer see the supposedly beautiful view surrounding the Mactan Island because it’s already dark but still we enjoyed our dinner. The Sutukil food and the way they cook it were really good.
The Sutukil eateries are to the left of the stage near the Mactan shrine, on the side of the small parking area with souvenir shops selling trinkets, shell craft and other native products. This is also the place where I bought my souvenir keychains for my collection.
The place is really worth the trip but after dinner, we were the last visitors in the shrine and it is already closed. It’s a long drive and it’s disappointing if we can’t even have souvenir pictures of the famous Mactan shrine. What we did was we just gave a “pang-kape” (bribe) to the guards to let us in and took pictures at the Lapu-lapu Shrine.
I later learned that “Sutukil” is not a place. It is a combination of SUgba which means grilled, TUwa which means simmered or stewed and KIlaw, which means raw.
Nothing beats home-cooked foods
Of course nothing really beats home-cooked foods, so it is a must for me to include here our dining experience at the Alon's residence. Many thanks to the hospitality of Capt. and Mrs. Alon, and to Allen of course, during our visit at their residence in Bantayan Island. Those seafoods you prepared for us are really awesome! Sa uulitin po!
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