Eating Cebuano

A few weeks ago, two of my friends from Manila visited Cebu. We decided to go out for dinner and they had one only request: To be able to eat food that could only be found in Cebu.

I was a bit flustered by the request and very pressured because I only had about three hours to decide where to take them. I thought about Cebu lechon but I knew that they could buy that at the weekend market in Salcedo Village in Makati. I also considered Sutukil but Mactan is far and I did not have a car. Besides, there are a lot of places in Metro Manila called dampa which offers a similar set-up. I also have no skill in choosing fish or any seafood. I've heard friends say that if the eyes are red, the fish is rotten. This method has not worked for me because the fish eyes I saw in the market all looked red but the people who looked like they knew what they were doing were still buying them.

I ended up taking them to Dessert Factory in Ayala Center because that was where I always went when I came home to Cebu. I'm also certain that it had no branch in Glorietta and Greenbelt, the malls closest to my old office. I figured that it would fit their criteria although I had doubts about its food being representative of Cebuano cuisine. My friends were happy with their dinner, which they found cheap and delicious, and they shared my excitement over the cake called Chococalypse (I'm not sure of the spelling), which I think is worth every sinful calorie.

Still, I was very disappointed with not being able to find "authentic" Cebuano food that night. I had considered taking them to the SM Food Court because I noticed that it housed branches of well-known Cebuano restaurants and eateries. I decided against it because I knew that food courts can get really noisy and crowded. It would have been impossible for us to have a conversation there.

I intend to be better prepared the next time my friends visit Cebu. Food, after all, reflects culture. I want to show them that Cebu is not just danggit and dried mangoes. Part of my preparation started with asking myself this: What food did I miss most when I was away from Cebu?

The first thing that I thought of was "steamed rice." I have heard several anecdotes of Cebuanos getting annoyed, even angry, upon being served plain white rice when they ordered "steamed rice" outside Cebu. Steamed rice was what my high school classmates and I ate when we went out because it was all we could afford then. I noticed though that it is now called "steamed fried rice."

The second was the food in Visayan Restaurant in Manalili Street . It was my grandfather's favorite restaurant. When I was a kid, eating out meant eating there. I tried other restaurants serving "comida China " in Manila but I always felt that the fried rice and lumpia in Visayan were better.

The third was the chami and the lomi in a carinderia in Carbon market. My grandmother first brought me there for lunch when I was in Grade I. Carbon was where we shopped for a dress and a pair of shoes for my First Communion.

The fourth was masi from Liloan. I have not been able to find masi this good anywhere else. In fact, I have not seen masi outside Cebu (but that could also be because I haven't been to a lot of places outside Cebu ). My father would buy a whole nigo when he passed by Liloan. We were told that the masi would become stale fast and had to be eaten within a few hours after cooking. Refrigerating them would not work because the wrapper would harden. We never really found out if this was true because we finished everything in a few minutes.

The fifth would be the cookies and torta (and I guess everything else) that are prepared at my grandparents' home during the Boljoon fiesta. I would always look forward to Novembers because that would mean being sent Boljoon cookies and torta.

I've realized that except for the Liloan masi and the Boljoon cookies and torta, the other food (steamed rice, fried rice, lumpia, lomi and chami) could probably be found in Binondo or any of the Chinatowns in different places. While this may lead others to conclude that Cebuano food is not that unique or special, I know that this is not so. The names may be the same but the Cebuano flavors are distinctive. Then again, I could just be romanticizing. Human memory is unreliable and it's been ages since I ate in Visayan Restaurant and in Carbon. I am definitely going to check if the food is still as good as I remember them very soon.

* * *

Email: [email protected]