One Night in Cebu
Day 3 of Philippines 2025 trip
ATR 72 with Mt Mayon in the Background
We spent the evening in Cebu celebrating Ippy’s birthday. Things didn’t go strictly to plan, but everything turned out alright after all.
DRP -> CEB (DG6211)
Bicol International Airport
Our flight from Legazpi was running an hour late, which unfortunately left not much time for us to celebrate. We had come up with a plan for the evening (specifically - where to get a cake and where to eat dinner) but since we were now so delayed, a few of our options had closed. So we had to quickly find new options. It did not help that we were landing and staying at Lapu Lapu city on Mactan island, as it seemed most of the action was over in Cebu city. Tourists that stuck to Mactan island would go off to their resorts on the Eastern side of the island.
Cebu City and Lapu Lapu from above
Lapu Lapu City
When we arrived at Mactan International Airport, we were so late we were worried that our free hotel shuttle pickup from our accomodation, Goldberry Suites, had missed us. So we waited another 15 minutes before someone showed up, and he himself was late because he parked the van all the way on the furthest end of the carpark.
Upon checking in to our hotel, we found they actually upgraded us to a King Suite, which was nice of them. The suite was huge and had a living room. Ippy was quite pleased with it and she declared it clean after doing her usual wet wipe routine yielded little. The location wasn’t the best, as it was next to a ridiculous 8 lane road, but it would have to do for one night.
After quickly settling in, we decided to head to the island of Cebu, as the restaurant Ippy wanted to go to in Lapu Lapu had closed. I’ve been to Mactan before as a kid, but funnily enough I’ve never set foot in Cebu.
Cebu IT Park
We took a Grab all the way to a part of town that still seemed to have restaurants open, the IT park of Cebu. This trip took like a whopping 45 mins to get here, due to traffic but fortunately Grab is cheap. Here, we get to see where all of the call centres and IT consultancies of the Philippines operate. There were lots of skyscrapers and a few big brands around in the area. Ippy had previously had colleagues that worked here too.
Our first stop was a place called 10 Dove Street, a cake store that looked nice enough. It was about 9:30pm, and they were already closed despite their own opening hours on the door saying 11pm. So we had to look around elsewhere.
We found a trendy looking cafe, Sparrow Cafe, very close by that was full of people and had a little bit of a line outside. They were selling cakes so we went inside to ask for takeaway. We bought a leche flan cake and a chocolate cake to eat later on.
The cakes at Sparrow Cafe
We spent a lot of time afterwards walking around, looking for a place to eat. We went to a popular place called Yakski Barbecue, but it didn’t seem to have the best hygiene standards with a lot of unrefrigerated raw meat lying around. We walked to Sugbo Mercado, which was your typical street stalls/open air food court/night market vibe that had a lot of very tasty looking dishes for sale. Alas, the lack of running water at what seemed like all the stalls, irked us out so we passed on that, despite how good it looked.
Sugbo Mercado in IT Park
Kubu Restaurant
In the end we settled on a Filipino restaurant called Kubu. It was a large 2 storey restaurant where the top floor was open air. It still had a bunch of people still eating at 10 PM. Fortunately, the kitchen wasn’t closed yet.
We asked the waitress about the recommendation on the menu which seemed to be the crispy pata. The smallest portion available she said feeds 3 people (PHP 615), but we accepted the challenge. We also ordered pork skewers (PHP 55 each) and a vegetable dish, Pinakbet with bagoong (shrimp paste) (PHP 175). Of course, with every Filipino meal we had to have rice, which in this case we ordered garlic rice (PHP 50).
Dinner (L-R): Pinakbet, Crispy Pata, Pork Skewers
The cripsy pata was very good. It was essentially a pork knuckle that was cut up and laid flat. The skin was indeed crispy, whilst the meat was soft. It was quite a generous portion that I spent a lot of time trying to finish it off. The dipping sauce that came with it was not too vinegary and complemented the meat and skin well. We were both impressed.
The pork skewers were tasty and perhaps a bit too sweet, but they were also a bit lukewarm.
The pinakbet was familar tasting with prominant shrimp paste and Atsuete (Annatto), which made it very red. It was kind of a stewy overcooked vegetable dish but it was better than no veg, which now seemed to be a common issue in this country.
The rice seemed more tumeric than garlic.
In the end they overcharged us 100 pesos, for the crispy pata (now PHP 715), as it turned out the waitress had ordered us the next size up. I was not in the mood to argue over 100 pesos (which is about 3 dollars AUD), but a local would’ve complained given it’s the equivalent to an hours wage. It’s not very nice to surprise upsize.
We took a Grab back to our accomodation which took much less time than before as it was getting late and there wasn’t much traffic anymore. We ate Ippy’s Birthday cake slices with no candles unfortunately, just before the clock ticked over to the next day.
I have to say, the Leche flan cake was mighty ridiculous and I struggled to finish it given the massive dinner we just had. It was really tasty. Ippy found it a bit ridiculous, as it was like eating two desserts in one, but it did work. The Chocolate cake slice was thankfully decent too, with proper chocoalte used.
Birthday cake slices and very poor lighting
View from hotel the next day (dirty window)
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