Profood

Tin Gow

La Gondola

Mizu

Zubuchon

A prized gift from a good friend who just arrived from Cebu--mouth watering, super delicious Zubuchon!  This I understand has been declared by Anthony Bourdain to be the best pig ever.  I do agree.  Whatever they add into the recipe makes it filled with aroma--maybe a bit of tanglad, peppercorn, oyster sauce, some say beer and 7Up too.  Slow-roasted on open pits to bring out tender, flavorful meat.  It's packed for travel (despite the 3 hour trip, the skin was crunchy enough).

Manna from heaven!

Triple E Squid Flakes

Amazing how she does it, but Becca flew to Cebu in the early morning last weekend, and came back just around midnight of the same day.  That's really tiring, but I think she had fun with all her office mates.  She came home with some hojaldres, dried mangoes and my favorite Triple E Squid Flakes, which are baked crispy and are ready to eat right off the plastic pack.  It's got a slightly sweet and spicy bite to it, and can be quite addicting.

Tin Gow

After visiting a few other real estate properties, we finally wound up in the Waterfront Hotel in the Lahug area.  I invited my friends to dinner at the Tin Gow Chinese restaurant, which serves Cantonese, Szechuan and Malaysian-Chinese styles of cooking.  Exhausted as we were, the good food and the charming & authentic ambiance made our night--

We started off with an assortment of cold cuts, and went on to have some thick fish lip soup.  We ordered a couple of dimsum baskets, and went on an assortment of viands.  We had beef ho fan, spicy pork cubes, crunchy squid, sea cucumber with snow fungus and broccoli, and sizzling beef.  With the flat noodles, no one asked for rice anymore, as we already had enough carbohydrates!  The meal came up to around P1,000 per head, which was a bit on the high side, bu then again, the food was quite good.

I was told that Tin Gow was a Chinese gambling game involving dominoes, and this was probably an apt name for the restaurant, as the hotel houses the largest casino in Cebu.

Best Western Sandbar Hotel

My friends booked at the Best Western Sand Bar Resort in Cordova, and when we got in the front porch was flooded from the heavy rains.  As we were ready to get out of our van, the nearby step-down transformer exploded (yes, it was a big blast, luckily without any fires), plunging the resort into emergency power.  Apparently, the staff of my friends looked up the nearest hotel in the Cordova area, and since Best Western was a familiar brand, the booking was instantly made over the internet.  The resort is still on soft-open mode, and a lot of the amenities are still under construction (e.g. restaurant, shops).

The rooms are nicely decorated and spacious.  The building is curved, so if you take a look at it closely, each room is a bit shaped like a fan, which leads to a spacious look and feel.  Pretty expensive though, for P3,900 per night.  Each room has a view overlooking the sea and the swimming pool, and the balcony is a very pleasant lounge area.  The pool is quite attractive for kids, the giant slide will surely keep them busy all afternoon.  I was told at the reception counter that the beach area still has to be developed properly, and I when I saw the shoreline (pictured below), I just had to tell the staff that the owning company should work on this pretty soon--such a expensive resort without a decent beach area would just create wasted opportunity for guests!

Lantaw

This trip to Cebu and Iloilo was very hectic, and we had to pick-up the pace in order to visit several project sites.  Our first stop was a real estate development site in Mactan, and by lunch time we were taken to Lantaw floating restaurant in Cordova.  Yes, a restaurant on stilts, right in the middle of the sea!  The sky was overcast, the wind was very cool and by mid-lunch, it was pouring like crazy.  It was the perfect place to grab a few beers and chit chat--the view of Cebu island was fading fast as the rain rolled in, and the lazy atmosphere made me feel like dozing off (as if I hadn't slept on that bumpy plane ride from Manila to Mactan).

We enjoyed our lunch--grilled liempo, some fish, scallops and another shellfish, the name of which escapes me now.  I just love their scallops and the this specialty shellfish--you take the insides by the outstretched portions, and as you pull the meat out, you can see it twirl right past the conch cavities!  Meaty, tasty and sometimes chewy (specially if the grilled edges are a bit singed).  I don't know exactly how much we spent, but judging from the menu, I'd say that if you prepare something like P500 per head, you can already have a mini fiesta!