Neighboring Army Navy in IT Park Lahug is a newly opened restaurant that is supposedly to be a rival of Chicken BonChon. As Chicken Charlie puts it, their secret to their addicting chicken meal is to fry it twice, first with a flavor of your choice followed by another deep broil to lock in the flavor. You also have the option to savor your meal with a serving of iced tea and soda by the glass. If you prefer something fancier and a little bit pricier, one can opt for bottled ginger ale and sarsaparilla.

Interestingly, the chicken is indeed crispy by far, perhaps just as good as Chowking's Chinese style fried chicken. Their drumsticks and wings are sprayed with a delicate hint of a flavor of your choice: soy garlic or sweet spicy. As an added feature, they have this tiny warning device given to you so you can know whether your order is ready for pickup. Pretty nifty, huh?

 As opposed to BonChon, the meal is close to a disappointment. We realized it one minute too late the moment we sank our teeth into the soft tender flesh of the freshly seared poultry. The flavor was only skin deep!





Chicken Charlie
eBloc 2, Asiatown IT Park

Verdict:
2.5/5


The meal itself is average, a bit pricy if you ask me, 4 pieces of wings and 4 pieces of drumsticks with a pair of refreshments cost us around 400. 

 Part of our Cebu tour for our 98 year old grandmother is treating her around Ayala premises so she can sample different cuisines during her vacation. As agreed upon this week, we took her to Banana Leaf, an Asian fusion restaurant. The servers were prompt and polite, genuinely interested in giving her the best service they could provide even though the place was packed during lunch time.

 For starters, we had Thai Style pomelo salad, a fruity and nutty blend of grated coconut, pomelo and greens, a serving of Roti Canai, an Indian influenced flat bread that goes well as is. Once we were done, we ordered granny dearest a set meal of Hainanese Chicken, complete with chicken soup stock, slow broiled pieces of soft meat, Pad Thai, two hearty slabs of baby back ribs and a serving of black curry lamb.

Most of the orders here were somewhat of a disappointment, given the fact that many had coconut as an extender. The Black Curry Lamb didn't even have a hint of curry but just had tons of blackened coconut gratings cleverly hidden as "curry", and the pomelo salad, something we were sure that didn't have coconut cream now tasted awful because of it. The served ribs were so-so, assuming you were into over cooked meat with too much sauce in it. On the good side, the pad thai, the roti and the hainanese chicken were good orders, thankfully.

Banana Leaf, Ayala Center Cebu

Apparently, McDonald's released a new type of burger in their arsenal of food as a response to the newly opened burger house at IT Park, Lahug. They aptly named it the "Big and Meaty Burger", which is composed of a big burger patty topped with a generous amount of sauce, a big slice of melted cheese, slivers of sweet pickles and finally chilled fresh lettuce. The burger meal comes with the typical regular fries and soda that can be upsized to your liking.

This is the first time we brought our 97 year old grandmum out to a decent restaurant in ayala center Cebu. What bothered me was that Cafe Laguna had average PWD facilities, making it almost impossible to use wheel chairs.

Upon entering the facility, the servers were too busy with what they were doing despite the fact that the place was vacant. I never really understood why that was the case, but it continued for 20 minutes tops.


We had their Pinoy High Tea which is composed of mini treats like small buns with tuna flakes, some bibingka (rice cakes), espasol (rice treat with ground rice powder and caramelized sugar), and turon (caramelized sugar placed on top of fried banana). We also ordered an additional serving of Puto (rice cake from manila), puto bumbong (again, another rice delicacy with melted butter, graded coconut and sugar) and bibingka. It seemed like they forgot the serve us the tea once, and when it was served, it was warm.when it should have been HOT, and oh, did I mention that no one wanted to attend to us when we were requesting a few glasses of water?



The food is exceptional I'll grant that. But it seems like we just caught them at a wrong time and date.




Café Laguna
Ayala Center Cebu Branch
Level 1, The Terraces
Ayala Center Cebu,
Cebu Business Park, Cebu City
(+63 32) 231.0922


Verdict:

3.5/5

I'll be fair and give it a passing 3.5 when it should have been a 4.5. Maybe The service will improve eventually.

Army Navy

Rumors do spread like wildfire indeed, as word on the streets reached our ears that a new branch of Army Navy has arrived here in Cebu. After buying my (newish) second hand Experia active, my sister and I were eager to try and compare the newly built Army Navy with the branch back in Glorietta.

The place still smelled of wet cement and paint, but had the same old feel and ambiance of Army Navy. The same old menu we loved back then was still there, something that felt new and refreshing in contrast to the normal fast food joint. I mean, where can you find a burger joint that sells three-patty burgers, some really good milkshakes, and awesome burritos?

Anyway, I mentioned that three-patty burger right? We had that (it's called Bully Boy burger) and a Starving Sailor sandwich, which had thin slices of Rib Eye steak in it. The Bully Boy burger had three delicious juicy beef patties and vegetables in two lightly toasted burger buns in contrast to the Starving Sailor sandwich that had moist medium well strips of meat and veggies. We had these sandwiches paired with a serve of onion rings, fries, Libertea (their special brewed iced tea) and a can of soda.


Army Navy
Eblock2, IT Park, Cebu City


Verdict: 4/5
The food is scrumptiously delicious! The drawback to this is that they have very expensive meals (had to pay around 700+ for two sandwiches.) Not for the faint of wallets!

We came upon this korean-themed restaurant in IT park one fine evening after gym and decided to try why many people opt for this restaurant. The interiors looked cozy enough and even the atmosphere was pleasant enough.

Oh boy, how wrong we were...

As I've said, the place from the outside looked pleasing to the eyes. As we were seated, we were attended to by this young lady in her late 20s. From the name of the restaurant itself, we were ready to acknowledge that the house specializes in, drum roll please, no other than chicken.

And of course, local and imported beer. The food wasn't much, definitely not a place you should go to if you're looking for a quiet place to unwind and enjoy the evening's meal with fellow friends and workers. The food here is over priced, not to mention the poor service where the servers stood there idly in a corner, talking to each other. The Crispy Pork Leg took forever to arrive, and the kimchi was too sour. The sisig was ok, but that's that.


Chicken And Beer 
Asiatown IT Park, Lahug (Padriga St.)

Verdict:
2.5/5

Not very satisfactory. Perhaps if I were out to get a drink, sure. But otherwise, no.

Located a few steps away from the main entrance of the JP Morgan building, this casual dining restaurant offers the relaxing ambiance of Filipino dining while maintaining its traditional Chinese feel. We arrived here a few minutes past 5:30 and were seated comfortably to one of the establishment's couches. The restaurant was as empty as it could be, perhaps because of a bad choice of location or simply the budget. But it was one of the things I liked about this place, the absence of chit chattering individuals who can't seem to stop yapping about who did what in their workspace.

I was surprised by the service of this place; within five minutes after finalizing our order and myself coming back from the public washroom, several plates of food were laid out in front of me and my sister for our consumption. We had crispy noodles, macao roast pig, radish cake and kung pao chicken.