On a food trip in Cebu

It is refreshing and indeed encouraging to see spirited entrepreneurs venture into new projects amid the trying economic and political uncertainties of the times.

Surprisingly, or is it merely being true-to-form, the industrious Cebuanos are busy opening and inaugurating establishments everywhere. I recently had a chance to visit two places.

A group of close friends, who had gone their own separate ways in their individual quests for life’s adventure, found some common ground, such as pleasant memories of travels abroad and their love for good food, when they got together recently. These passions gave them more than enough reason to keep in touch. And they did.

Soon Dindo Borromeo with cousin Annette Gallego, chums Allan and Camille Suarez, Ramie and Mae So and Chocho and Stephanie Zagala created Red Tomato, a restaurant like no other in Cebu.

With tomato being a basic ingredient in most of its delectable recipes, Red Tomato takes great pride in its genuine no-substitution-please ingredients. With the exception of the meat and the seafood from our seas, the main components of the entire well-studied and reviewed menu, specifically the pastas, sauces, cheeses, sausages and spices, are all imported directly from Italy.

Soup, such as the Tortellini de la Casa (egg pasta in basil flavored clear chicken soup), and Fusilli alla Rustica (corkscrew-shaped pasta with Italian sausage, green peas and tomato sauce) are a must. Pesce al Cartoccio (whole lapu-lapu with mixed sauce) and prawns and shrimps in spicy tomato sauce stand out among the excellent seafood dishes.

For dessert lovers, they can indulge in everyone’s favorite, Tiramisu and Panna Cotta, both equally luscious. For coffee aficionados, Red Tomato offers one of the best-rated Italian coffees, Lavazza.

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I can’t ever recall meeting anyone who does not enjoy Chinese cuisine; oh well, come to think of it, perhaps at least one gentleman who means so much to me.

So when the family of Jimmy and Susan Lao recently inaugurated the Marco Polo Seafood Garden, located at the restaurant row of Ayala Business Center, and had Tourism department regional director Dawnie Roa and Cebu Holdings president Rex Drilon as guests of honor, countless Cebuanos were deliriously ecstatic with joy for they knew they had found at last one of the finest Chinese restaurants in Cebu. The menu, which includes braised whole lapu-lapu with lechon kawali and bean curd sticks with black mushrooms served in a clay pot, beef brisket and tendon with saté sauce in whole pineapple, and sautéed cuttlefish with peaches, are derived from age-old recipes, and are enriched by the family’s own innovative food preparation. Marco Polo once again proves to one and all that there is more to Chinese cuisine than beef with oyster sauce and sweet and sour pork.

Among the guests truly enjoying the lauriat were ahead-of-his-time architect Maxwell Espina, mega printers Andrew Ching and Manuel Limtong and Judith Go of Citibank fame.

Also seen were Ramon Makilan of Cebu Marriott Hotel, Wally Liu of Primary Structures, Teng Casipit of Ayala Center Cebu and tour specialists Inday Alegrado of Alenter Tours and Eileen and Jun Yap of Travelways.

And so as the Filipino-Chinese friends would say "Lai Cha" (come and let’s eat).