Chika-an — Restaurant in Puerto Princesa

What is the one thing you need after a 12-hour transfer flight and zero sleep? Fried chicken!!..... after checking in at a nearby inn, we came here on our host’s recommendation. No regerts (no, that’s not a typo) is what we say.

We ordered for two but the food that came was probably enough for 3-4 Asians: Soy glazed fried chicken, beef bistek tangalog, ponchello soup (without the meat), lechon and garlic rice. If you had to order just one from the list — it’d be the chicken, hands down. And if you had to give anything a miss — the soup.

The thing to remember is that Filipino food flavours are extreme. That is, they’re either extremely sweet, sour or salty. Another thing to keep in mind is they’re relatively generous with their portions. So everything we ordered was a tad on the salty side (and I personally love salty stuff). But salty soup is just a no-go.

Anyway, back to the important bit: the chicken. Its batter was fried to a perfect dark golden brown, flavourful (I still can’t figure the ingredients but I’m no food coinosseur), and the meat was moist enough. That’s about 6-7 pieces of heaven.

Then the lechon. It’s Philippines and you can’t go wrong with lechon. It was a bit on the dry side but it was crispy where it was meant to be crispy. Just the right amount of salt and fats. You can ask for less fatty parts if you want to cut down on the sin.

Garlic rice — GO FOR IT.

Beef bistek was a bit tough but the sauce was sweet and savoury and I pretty much drowned my rice in it. Then my lechon. Then my chicken. Then my fingers (ok no, I’m kidding).

We passed by it again at night and wished we could be there then instead of during lunch. The atmosphere was even more amazing and they have a pretty good live singer live!

P.S. They have about 4 different cats (that we saw, anyway). Cute and will bug...

This branch of a famous restaurant in Cebu is surprisingly quiet on a Mother's Day. They offer both ala carte food and package meals for 4 pax and above. We ordered the crispy pata, tinola, pansit canton and pinakbet meal package. The crispy pata was good. The skin was crispy and the meat soft. It would have been better of it came with a house dip that could have given it it's own identity. The pansit canton, taste average. Only the taste of sesame oil obvious flavor carrier. The pinakbet is far from the conventional pinakbet which taste or flavor was from the soy sauce and fermented shrimp paste. The flavor came from the sauteed tomatoes and pounded pork cracklings. Overall this is worth tasting and...

We were one of the first to arrive, at least upstairs. Service was a little slow but not that bad. Good BBQ Chicken. Love that they have Arnold Palmer in a pitcher. Chorizo Cebu was tasty. Krispy Pata was good. Didn't like that they asked me if I had 10 pesos to give me back exact change. Parking was good because we were there early. Most restaurants fail to give space for parking, which is nonsense. Chika-an was smart enough to do their business right. Lighting was great. Music was at an appropriate volume for the background. Staff was courteous. We got everything we ordered, nothing missing or nothing extra. I'll gladly add this as a...