Cebu, B?

Note: If you know where the title comes from, high five!

I have been MIA from this blog for over the week because I was in Cebu for a half work trip/half holiday. And despite the work part (hehe), it was a great trip, and was my first beach trip of the year (and in the end of June, too!).

What made even the work part was great was the fact that we didn’t spend the time cooped up in some resort conference room 80% of the time. The fact that activities started at 10am instead of the usual 8:30 or 9 was a plus, too, since it gave me chance to lounge around on the beach and catch some pre-noon sun.

Apart from catching some sun on the beach, what else is there to do in Cebu? Well, duh. Reward yourself for all that pre-bikini dieting with some lechon!

Lechon Cebu is my favorite. With regular lechon, only the skin is worth the calories, really. But with Lechon Cebu, the meat is soooooo flavorful, since the lechon’s cavity is filled with garlic, lemongrass and other secret ingredients. And one of the most popular lechon brands in Cebu is Zubuchon. Since a Zubuchon branch was conveniently located in Mactan, it was our go-to place for greasy, crispy roast pork goodness:

And if you’re still haven’t had enough of lechon the regular way, Zubuchon has more pork-laden options for you. Craving for a vegetable dish? There’s sauteed kangkong with lechon.  Got a hankering for soup? There’s monggo soup with lechon (it was yummy!).

But the standout non-lechon-but-with-lechon dish for me would be this:

Sizzling squid stuffed with lechon. I don’t even like squid that much. But I LOVED this.

Then you wash all that lechon down with their Kamias shake. I was worried that this would be too sour, but it was perfect. Like a green mango shake with a little bit more edge. Apparently it also has some fat-fighting properties. So obviously, I ordered this the two times I went to Zubuchon.

And, though it seems that way, I didn’t live in Zubuchon (or in the hotel it was located in). For the personal part of my trip, this where I stayed:

Crimson Resort and Spa

Although you can’t see them in this picture, they have these wave-shaped couches that are deadly. Sit on one of those (even without the cushions they put), and be prepared to not get up for hours, under normal circumstances. Add a sea breeze to that equation? Consider yourself glued to the couch. Like I said, deadly.

Le sigh. I haven’t been back a week and I already want to go back to Cebu. For the beach. For that couch. Okay, fine, for the lechon, too.

My verdict on the most expensive burger in the country

I went to Cebu a little over a month ago and stayed at the then Hilton Cebu (rebranded as the Movenpick Resort and Spa the day after I checked out). My room was a little small, considering it was already a deluxe room. I like the overall feel of it, though. It felt light and airy and very beach-y. I think it looked like you could step out of the balcony and be steps away from the beach, instead of it being 14 stories aboveground.

Apart from the chance to just lie around, read and soak up the sun, the other thing I was looking forward to doing at the Hilton Cebu was eat. Specifically, I wanted to try the Wagyu burger from Manny O’s Wine & Tapas. At roughly PHP 1,400 (about $32), it’s widely known as the most expensive hamburger in the Philippines (is this still true? Feel free to correct me if you know otherwise).

It’s not available from the room service menu, but you can still have it delivered up to your room, which I did as I was too lazy to haul my ass all the way to Manny O’s which is at the far end of the resort. That cost me a room service fee though, making the burger even more expensive.

The view from my balcony. Manny O's is at the end of that walkway.

The burger came in a bento box, which included fries, a side salad, soup and “dessert” (look how tiny that thing is). The burger itself is a little small-ish, given the price, but it wasn’t tiny either. It came in ciabatta bread and not a regular hamburger bun. I ordered it with “everything”, even if I didn’t know what “everything” meant when I was asked. I figure I might as well, since the burger was so expensive to begin with and I also wanted the full-on Wagyu burger experience. Besides, I could always take out anything I didn’t like.

Burger in a bento box

It turns out everything means lettuce, tomato, cheese and an egg (I think there were pickles, too). My first question: no onions? I love onions on a burger, because I think the salty-sweet-tangy flavor complements the meatiness of the beef. I was a little let down that this particular one didn’t have any. My second question: an egg, really? I don’t understand why anyone would ever put an egg on a burger, but it was no big deal as I could easily take it out anyway.

Before I took my frist bite...

With that out of the way, what did it actually taste like? So here we go… I like that it’s on ciabatta, I love how the crustiness of the bread holds up against the juice of the patty dripping down to the bottom. I, unsurprisingly, didn’t like the egg, so I took that out after two bites. And what about the star of the show, the reason this burger is so damn expensive to begin with, the meat? It was good… but not great. It wasn’t as flavorful as I expected a Wagyu beef burger to be. It didn’t strike me as particularly well-seasoned or grilled, even, as it didn’t have the smoky quality that grilling would usually give.

So what’s my final verdict on the country’s most expensive hamburger? Is it good? Yes. Is it worth the PHP 1,400? Not really. I guess you could say that I set my expectations too high for this one. But for the amount of money they’re charging for it, is it too much to ask for a burger that will blow me away?