Heads or Tails

THINK of these two restaurants as two sides of the same coin. One is found in Cebu’s trendiest venue for dining. The other has several branches all over the city. Hukad sa Golden Cowrie and Cheaverz, both under the management of the Kokseng family, serve what Cebuanos love best: down-home cooking.

An offshoot of the much-loved Golden Cowrie restaurant along Salinas Drive, Hukad sa Golden Cowrie serves the same food as the old one, but in more up-to-date interiors.

Of course, when you’re in The Terraces, inviting interiors are a must, but more than that, the food you serve should be at par with the best.

This is what Hukad excels at. The food they serve is among the best traditional Pinoy food you’ll ever get in Cebu, and to top it off, rice is all you can eat.

Start your meal with an order of their “Baked Scallops” and you’ll see what I mean. They’re bigger than average, very fleshy, and are smothered with cheese. The cheese sets off the flavor of the scallops and leaves you wanting for more. The “Adobong Talong” should also be in your to-taste list, as it seems to be a favorite among the diners, especially among the Tagalog crowd. A visit to Golden Cowrie wouldn’t be complete without an order of their famed Crispy Pata. A deep-fried leg of pork, it is cooked until it comes out a succulent golden-brown, with the pork skin really crispy. However, the meat
underneath remains tender and juicy, each bite a luscious treat.

On the other hand, Cheaverz, popular among the take-out crowd for their barbecued pork and ngohiong, has a couple of new items on their menu. A Tagalog favorite, “Liempo,” is already available, and I bet a lot of Tagalogs will be flocking to the Cheaverz branches once word gets out. It’s a great big chunk of pork, skin and all, seasoned and slow roasted to perfection and then chopped up into bite-size pieces. It’s actually a great alternative to the usual kilo or two of lechon one takes home for dinner.

The other new item at Cheaverz is the “Lechon Manok.” Simply put, it’s a roast chicken, stuffed with leeks, onions, some cloves of garlic and seasoned with salt and pepper. Simple and satisfying, you can’t go wrong bringing home one or two of these. Of course, the Cheaverz mainstays, pork belly, ngohiong and pork barbecue have always tasted great, and I must admit, we have, more often than not, run to Cheaverz for these items whenever an impromptu party came up.

While the former can be considered classy and the latter, pang-masa, one thing remains the same with these two restaurants: they’re ever-reliable when it comes to satisfying your appetite.

With that in mind, and especially with a hungry stomach, a visit to Hukad, or Cheaverz, or both, shouldn’t be too far off in your plans.