For the love of pork
IT’S that time of year when Sun.Star Weekend’s Best of Cebu team get down and busy as they finalize categories and put forward nominees for the 2016 Best of Cebu selection due to see print this December. Now on its fourth year of celebrating and honoring Cebu’s best, Sun.Star Weekend rolls out a series of features of the previous year’s winners, perhaps to provide insight on what it takes to win in this annual selection. Every Best of Cebu issue has become the de facto “guidebook” among visitors and locals alike who are in search of the best that Cebu has to offer, while winning establishments proudly display Sun.Star’s Seal of Approval.
In this issue, let us revisit a category that was introduced only last year, the People’s Choice, whose winners are chosen by our readers through online voting. This time, though, we zero in on pork dishes, products and places, because Cebu is big when it comes to pig. So let’s check out four of the Best of Cebu 2015 People’s Choice winners:
How could anyone have doubted that Larsian is Cebu’s all-time favorite barbecue place? Located in the Fuente Osmeña area, Larsian is home to dozens of stalls offering identical barbecued and grilled meat and seafood dishes. But the standout bestseller is the iconic Larsian pork barbecue that’s dipped in soy sauce and vinegar infused with chillies and paired with hanging rice. As the locals say, you haven’t been to Cebu if you haven’t tasted the pork barbecue at Larsians.
Cebuanos take their crispy pata quite seriously. It’s no surprise that over the years, the Crispy Pata Wars have been simmering quietly all over the place, often raising blood pressures with every pig knuckle or trotter cracked, examined, admired. The online poll decided the issue once and for all: and the public voted Golden Cowrie’s Crispy Pata as Cebu’s best for 2015.
Anyone who knows his food will say that Cebu has the best roasted pig, hands down, in the world. Now that wouldn’t have been a problem if there’s only one good lechon maker here. The thing is, almost every lechonero would claim that his lechon is the best. To settle the issue, Sun.Star asked its readers in the online poll to decide which Cebu lechon is best for 2015. And the winner? CNT Lechon.
Now, this People’s Choice poll pitted the various delicacies from several towns all over Cebu, such as masi, bibingka, masareal and torta. Of course, Carcar’s Chicharon won by a mile. Then again, who would dispute that this Southern town produces the best, the crispiest pork cracklings in the country?
