If you ask any Filipinos — especially those in Cebu — to recommend their most popular food, many will suggest lechon (Spanish for roasted suckling pig). And one of those restaurants to try it in Cebu City will be the House of Lechon.
It was around noon when we arrived at House of Lechon and it was already full house with many people waiting for their turns in the waiting area. Since we had made reservations, we walked in straight to the envy eyes of those still waiting.
I looked through the glass panels of the "barbecue room" on the way in, hoping to see whole suckling pigs being roasted on skewers over charcoal fire but there were none. The piglets had already been roasted prior to lunch time — need to be there earlier to see the roasting process.
We had pre-ordered a 10-course lunch of Filipino and Cebuan local dishes, excluding drinks, and they were served all at once within minutes after we were seated:
Lechon
Baked scallops
Canton guisado
Kinilaw ala Cebuana
Grilled tuna belly
Sinigang na tanigue
Fried spring rolls
Chilli cheese sticks (dynamites)
Gising gising kangkong
Dessert: Buko pandan shot
The highlight of the feast was none other than the lechon dish called Carcar Lechon (regular) — Carcar City is known to have the best lechon in Cebu. The cut lean pork with crispy roasted skin were served in a specially-made plate in the shape of a pig's head. The two "ears" were actually saucers for putting extra dipping sauces. The lechon was nicely roasted, not too fatty nor too dry, and really good.
However, the regular portion was a lot of meat, especially when there were 8 other dishes, excluding the dessert. We could not finish it.
Baked scallops was a simple yet tasty dish where scallops were baked with cheese, garlic bits and some herbs. The scallops were rather small though, probably out of season.
Canton guisado was a Filipino stir-fried Canton noodle dish with big prawns and various vegetables.
Kinilaw ala Cebuana, or Filipino ceviche, was a raw fish dish. Kinilaw refers to cubed raw fish being tossed with coconut vinegar and the flesh of sour-sweet mangoes and served in acidic fruit juice such as calamansi or lime juice. This dish is very much an appetiser. I like this dish!
Grilled tuna belly was chunky and looked like beef steak with fried garlic bits. It was tasty too.
Sinigang na tanigue was sour fish soup. Sinigang is sour soup and tanigue means Spanish mackerel. The fish meat was cooked in sour tamarind broth with various vegetables and onions.
Fried spring rolls with salad cream. A simple dish.
Chilli cheese sticks were another type of fried spring rolls with cheese and non-spicy whole green chillies. The stalks of the chillies protruding from one end made these spring rolls looked like dynamites — hence, the dish is also known as "dynamite".
The Filipino buko pandan shot was a dessert with clear jelly, made with young coconut, and green jelly, made with pandan, and submerged in coconut cream. It was a sweet dessert, nevertheless.
Coconut juice came in big coconuts with the logo of the restaurant stamped on it. But I had black coffee instead.
One more dish was a vegetable dish known as gising gising kangkong, or stir-fried water spinach with garlics — I didn't take a photo of it since it was a very common dish in Southeast Asia.
For travellers in a group, House of Lechon is one option to go for lechon and more local food.
Address:
House of Lechon
Acacia St, Cebu City, 6000 Cebu, Philippines
Opening Hours:
10am to 9pm | Daily