Live cooking are a new twist in the Kadaugan sa Mactan Food Festival where the public gets to taste dishes whipped up by chefs from top Lapu-Lapu City resorts for under P100. (CDN PHOTO/TONEE DESPOJO)
Visitors filled their plates with Mongolian stir-fried noodles for only P80 a serving at the Mactan Shrine, where chefs and chafing dishes of five-star resorts provided a classy touch to the Kadaugan sa Mactan celebration.
“Food is cheap and good. There’s more variety every year and the production show is improving”, said Elsa, a housewife from Lapu-Lapu, who attends the event every year.
What started as a simple food festival in 2001, celebrating the 1521 Battle of Mactan, has turned into a week-long celebration with several hotels, restaurants and retailers participating.
A total of 39 booths offered various cuisines when the food festival opened on Monday, April 21, an increase from the 31 booths that joined last year.
Organizers estimate that guests reached 9,000 to 11,000 daily, a mix of locals from Lapu-Lapu city and nearby Mandaue and Cebu cities, aside from foreign tourists.
Crimson Resort and Spa Hotel, which participated this year, introduced “interactive cooking”, where guests could observe how the food was cooked on the spot. A top-seller at the resort was its Mongolian Stir Fried Noodles at P80 per serving. Shangri-la Mactan Resort and Spa offered pork “humba”, and had roasted chicken carved for customers with a live cooking demonstration of its sauteed beef and vegetables – all for P85 per serving.
Mongolian Stir Fried (CDN PHOTO/TONEE DESPOJO)
“This year’s food festival certainly is bigger, has more variety and better food presentation,” said Hembler Mendoza, Lapu-Lapu City Tourism Office Head.
“This gives people a chance to enjoy quality and high-end food at a very affordable price”.
All of the dishes were priced below P100.
Mendoza, who has organized the celebration since 2007, added live production as a new twist in the daily activities of the festival which allowed chefs and kitchen staff to showcase their talents as well.
Other booths were manned by staffers from Imperial Palace Waterpark and Resorts, Plantation Bay and Resorts, Movenpick Hotels and Resorts, Shangri-La Mactan Resort, Maribago Blue Waters, Eloise Suites, among others.
Hotels and retailers used different themes in presenting their dishes.
Mendoza said he plans to add more variety and healthy dishes in succeeding events. “Since the food festival is already well-advertised and is constantly improving, security needs to be tighter,” Mendoza added.
The tents and kiosks crowding the Mactan Shrine for the food fair also indicate the need for a new location, he said, as the volume of visitors increase each year. The open air food festival, held at 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., ends today as a runup to Sunday’s reenactment of the historic battle between Datu Lapu-Lapu and Ferdinand Magellan. / Niña Bianca Sayson, UP Cebu
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