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Fresh tips and recommendations from ‘Cebu City Tourist Map’ insider
Sinulog is happening this weekend in Cebu. Who better to ask for recommendations and show us around than locals themselves? Today we have fresh tips from an insider.
Something of a local celebrity and a Cebu media mainstay, Jude Bacalso is a travel writer and photographer currently based in the Queen City of the South.
“I live in the Banawa-Guadalupe area in a pet-friendly Sundance Residences designed by Kenneth Cobonpue with my 10-year-old mixed terrier Shadow,” Jude tells GMA News Online on email. “I love that its five minutes away from the Provincial Capitol building, the same distance to the National Shrine of our Lady of Guadalupe, who is Cebu’s real patron saint by the way,” she clarifies, saying Sto. Nino cannot be a patron saint as he is young Jesus.
Jude is part of the Cebu City Tourist Map, a project of Department of Tourism 7 and the Tourism Office of Cebu and Cebu City that will hit right in time for Sinulog. Of course, we had to get his recommendations.
RELATED: Golden Cañedo's guide to Cebu
What is your preferred brand of lechon? A true Cebuano will always answer: The one made in our backyard. Every household, rich or poor, had a lechonero on call for any occasion. Our parents had a suki handed down from their parents, so my best brand was the one made in my Tatang Nemesio Bacalso’s home.
The next best thing is the market variety is the famous one in Carcar town, around three hours south from Cebu. The lechon is served with its own drippings from the roasting process. I like to call it the deadliest version of Cebuano lechon!
Cebu’s best-kept food secret: Our soups, otherwise known as ‘drunk food’ as we take them to sober up after a bout of drinking.
Our Pochero de Cebu is similar to bulalo and features marrow still in the bone that you scoop out; Nilarang sa Pasil is our weaker version of sinigang, soured with kamias and uses the controversial puffer fish, which may be poisonous if not properly prepared.
Our Utan Bisaya is a clear vegetable soup made with moringga leaves, upo, pumpkin, and often with last night’s leftover fried fish thrown in; our fresh Tinola na Isda, often using deep sea fish like barracuda, is basically tinola using the barest elements: tomatoes, onion leaves, ginger.
There are a lot of hole-in-the-wall restaurants serving these, but if you're going fancier, try the version served in in two Cebuano favorites: Cafe Laguna or Chika-an Sa Cebu.
And for the arts? Cebu's visual art scene is amazing with the emergence of young artists with a new points of view and techniques. There are two places in Crossroads Mall in Banilad you must visit if you want to see amazing art: Qube Gallery for visual art and Holicow, a group of Cebu-based industrial designers making crafts from necklaces, home accessories, that entire gamut — all sustainable!
Tell us something we don't know: There is a library behind the altar of the Basilica del Sto. Nino. Although it is open to the public, it is not nearly as popular as the image itself, which is the only one devotees really flock to.
I was blown away that behind the altar is a giant carved wooden eagle, a symbol of the Augustinian sect, which has kept this library for as long as the church has been standing — almost 300 years now! I love these best-kept secrets and want to spill them, one by one, in the Cebu City Tourist Map.
People should not leave Cebu without...: Visiting the Jesuit House of 1730 a.k.a. Museo Parian sa Sugbo. It is the oldest dated house in the country, discovered inside a working warehouse.
It’s trippy to see it in this present state, right smack in the center of the beautiful chaos of nails and wood and forklifts and corrugated sheets. Do ask the guide about the original grills on the windows that were made at the same time as the Titanic, how the building was earthquake-proofed by the Chinese builders, and the story of the five priests supposedly murdered inside and the crucifix carved into the coralstone walls by the alleged murderer. — LA, GMA News
