Tabo-an's Dried Fish

Actually every market (and mall market too) in P.I. sells dried fish. I haven't found a market yet in our country that has no dried fish section. Ofcourse, those bay side provinces that are seafood producers (like Cebu) deliver better quality dried seafood products.

In Cebu City, dried seafood products are best bought in Tabo-an Market. Specializing in massive variants of dried products- dangit, squid, shrimp, even dried mango can also be bought here.



I especially liked the longanisa (local sausage) de Cebu I bought from here. I guess flavors varied depending on which store you bought.

The only downside was it really stank. Omg!



From there we went straight to catch our flight back to Manila and funny that when we got miles away from the market, only then we realized that we were taking home not only Tabo-ans delicious goods but the dried fish awful smell too, haha.
Oops, don't forget to ask the merchant to box your smelly goodies if you're going to fly them. We did forget for a minute and had to ask our cab driver to turn back to the store and asked them to box pack our purchase. They did,  even apologetic that they didn't box it in the first place. Very nice.

Cnt Lechon Cebu

When the cab dropped us at CnT Lechon across SM, Cebu City, I was kindah in doubt. First of all, the building looked no similar to the ones I saw in others' blogs which was a huge hut resto infront of SM. This one looked like an office building with a basement car parking entrance. But the driver insisted this was the one.  You have to take stairs to get to the upper floor which was where the CnT resto located.

I confess I'm not  a big fan of  lechon Cebu ( see Hecky's Lechon here ). I like the fact that it's already seasoned  even before it undergoes the roasting process,  but I hate that lechon Cebu doesn't come with our traditional sarsa (liver sauce dip). So usually when I chanced upon a lechon Cebu in a gathering , I cheated my way to eating it with sarsa.



We entered the place at its low peak hour ( 2pm), just the way I planned it. I gathered that it was so popular and always crowded especially during lunch and dinner hours.

Cuzin'  was excited to buy kilos of  lechon for pasalubong especially when she found out that the establishment pack/box it as you order. Now we had a major problem here, the staff said there was no available at that moment and we had to wait near dinner for the next batch of  lechon. Ofcouse we couldn't wait ! We had to be at the airport at 5pm. So the pasalubong puffed out in the air.
That was ok,we just decided to dine- in. Anyway, we hadn't taken our lunch yet. We were roaming around the city the whole day.  But then there was another problem_ no lechon either for dine-in. So we just settled for these ( the only available foods) :

paksiw na lechon

crunchy pig's small intestine

In sync, we took our first hungry spoonful of rice and the paksiw. In unison we both commented how salty it was and that it was so different from our Tagalog paksiw na lechon which we still preffered. Next we both took a spoonful of rice and the intestine dipped in the vinegar_ salty!!! . . . so in the end we surprised ourselves when we realized that we consumed everything we ordered. Nothing left. We left the place still asking ourselves, were we just hungry or the foods were better than we thought???

Tides ( Shangri-la,Mactan)

The Tides is one of the 4 restos of Shangri-la, Mactan, Cebu. It serves dinner, lunch and breakfast buffet which offers variety of international cuisines.

It is located at the garden level of the resort. Some of the alfresco tables face the pool area which is very scenic.

We entered the resto at the climax of that day's buffet breakfast. It was overly crowded and nearing to the end of buffet hour. Long queues of guests for each section were crazy. We decided not to avail of the bf buffet and took ala carte instead. There was not  a single table available inside. The al fresco tables were empty though. On our way to the tables outside, I was able to take a quick glances of  the numerous buffet serving tables and by that alone I knew we ought to go back one day to try them.








The only qualm we had was the food took so long to be served. We already took tons of photos around and our food didn't arrive yet. We understood it wasn't a good idea to do ala carte while there's buffet going on, so we somehow didn't expect them to be that fast. But not that long either. Anyway, we had chosen two of the most easy to prepare/cook dishes in the menu. And we had reconfirmed to them if they could serve alacarte already at the time of buffet hour. They said yes.




After a long while and numbers of follow-ups our breakfasts  were served.

I was happy with my pancakes. I am a certified sweet-carbo breakfast-er. But rarely a rice person especially on the first hour of the day.

It had all of my favorite accessories for a perfect breakfast pancake. Ohlala!! =>; mango,blueberry,butter,syrup and cinnamon, perfect!!!mango,blueberry,butter,syrup and cinnamon, perfect!!!

Just the way I eat at home, with lots of fruit toppings ! loveth!! I finished all the 3 of them!!!

Let's check cuzin's plate. She was actually having a mild stomach problem and thought she would go easy on her breakfast. She ordered century egg congee.

huuuumhh, looked promising. . .with coloful condiments => seasoning, spicy salsa, olive oil?, chives.

Was she happy like me??? nah!! She hardly finished the bowl. She asked for calamansi and was given some lemons. She still prefer our local lugaw (congee) / goto. With local frills - patis, calamansi, you know the works :)))



Well, we had fun anyway :)