Pamagdoy Tour Diary (Day 1)

Thursday, April 19. We decided to write a series of posts to share our day to day happenings while on tour.  Hopefully you’ll find our blogposts interesting with tidbits of information, photographs and hopefully some videos too, if time and network permits.

Our Visayas bar tour officially starts today in Cebu with the first leg happening at Handuraw Pizza Gorordo. We arrived a night earlier, just a few hours ago, via Air Philippines. Flight was delayed but considerably smooth. Eric Smith, owner and marketing manager of Handuraw,  along with his cousin Charles welcomed us at the airport in Cebu.

At NAIA Terminal 3 before boarding.

A Toyota Super Grandia driven by a nice guy name Kerwin is also waiting for us courtesy of our transport sponsor  Cebu Executive Rent-a-Car. Quite spacious for a small entourage of six which includes Antonette, our roadie and Lilystars representative; and Utoy, our all around funny guy, PA and technician.

We did a quick check-in at Cebu Grand Hotel, our official residence in Cebu, before we satisfied our craving for lechon. Kerwin brought us to a place called Zubo Chon just walking distance from our hotel. Surprisingly, for a restaurant with lechon as a specialty, Zubo Chon looks very contemporary in terms of ambiance and presentation. And for the price and menu, it does not disappoint.

We ordered a kilo of  Zubuchon Lechon (P490), Pickle Platter – Atsara, Burong Mangga, Singkamas (P120), Eggplant Salad (P90) and Rice Platters  (P70) for sharing. George and I  paired our meal with a welcome bottle of Pale Pilsen to compliment the lechon while Antonette got curious with their Kamias Shake which turned out to be pretty good! Although some of my Cebuano friends say CNT is the best in town (we have yet to try), I would definitely recommend Zubu Chon too.

A hearty kilo of Zubo Chon lechon.

Pickle Platter (Atsara, Singkamas at Burong Mangga)

Talong/Eggplant Salad

A photo before we dig in.

We also enjoyed after-dinner coffee and caramel cake dessert at Coffee Dream just next door. Particularly liked the well-lit interior and design although I couldn’t say the same thing about their music playlist.

Inside Coffee Dream

Couch and coffee.

My fix.

And then some.

And so we called it a night.

We ended the night with a short walk  back to the hotel, goofing along the way, and buying some supplies at a nearby convenience store.  A hot bath and afterwards some quality time with my newly re-stringed guitar before I decided to write this first post for our tour diary. The last time we played in Cebu was 2010 and we are very excited to see beautiful smiles tonight.