By Alex Cameron
Over Easter my partner and I flew to Cebu, the central Philippines city slated by many as the archipelago’s culinary centrepiece.
The love of pork, rum and barbeque runs deep I was told, and I exited the plane hungry, glistening with sweat.
We failed to factor in that the love of Jesus Christ also runs deep, and as such arriving on Good Friday afforded us limited food options as Cebuanos shut up their shops to celebrate Catholicism’s night of nights, complete with parade and actual (voluntary) crucifixion.
After scouring the city for lunch, we wearily made our way to a highway-side Jollibee. For those unfamiliar, the ‘bee’ is a proud Filipino export; a fast-food joint famous for fried chicken, sweet tomato pasta with hotdogs and a round-cheeked mascot which, I imagine, has haunted the nightmares of children from Manila to Davao.
Fortunately for us, Jollibee’s quality (especially compared with other fried chicken chains which shall remain nameless) is a testament to a culture where even the fastest, cheapest food is treated with serious respect.
Of course, the real pride and joy of Cebuano cooking is lechon – whole pig roast over charcoal until the skin cracks and snaps like glass – and that’s what I went searching for at Sunshine’s Cebu Charcoal Lechon Belly (CCLB) on McIntyre Rd.
It’s fair to say Filipino food is having a moment in Melbourne. Serai in the CBD has enjoyed justified hype for its flame-focused play on Pinoy classics, while just last week Broadsheet published a list of six Filipino ‘cafés and dessert shops’ to try – sure sign of a cuisine dipping its toes into Melbourne’s trendy middle-stream occupied furtively by overpriced sandwich shops and taquerias.
It’s often easy to forget that behind every new object of hype is a dozen places like CCLB, quietly and cheaply plying traditional trade for a devoted, outer-suburban diaspora craving a taste of home.
The first thing you notice when you walk in is the smell: it smells like pork. Shocking, you might say, but the scent of lechon is truly unique and not easily replicated. It’s almost a broth-like smell, rich and roasted, with hints of charcoal and lemongrass and a slick, salty fattiness.
Mariah Carey is on the TV, which plays a soundtrack of 20 ‘top Christmas songs 2024’ – a little early, maybe, but somehow deeply authentic. Neon signs abound in the small restaurant, with seating on one side and a bain-marie full of the eponymous pork belly opposite.
My party of four orders a half-kilo serve of the spicy lechon ($40), which when it arrives is clearly enough. On the side we take rice, lechon sisig, pancit bihon, pinakbet and a serve of tortang talong (eggplant omelette) for our vegetarian associate (who was pre-warned that this was no place).
The meal arrives together – more or less instantaneously – with a free side of soup and a bottle of house-made vinegar.
Three sets of hands immediately dive for the lechon, scooping huge chunks of moist pork onto our individual beds of rice, followed by crispy shards of skin. The spiced vinegar with shallots is a perfect foil for the pork, cutting through the fat and giving a welcome acidic edge to the rich meat.
The lechon is perfect. The flesh falls apart with the slightest encouragement, a red spice mix crusting the outside and providing each bite with its own individual seasoning (a non-spicy version is also available, but the spicy one is nothing to be afraid of). The skin is beautiful and alternatingly snaps and crackles depending on which part you get, rewarding your teeth and tongue with a variety of satisfying textures available only through the high heat puckering of pig skin.
It is, from my limited time in Cebu, exactly how I remember it.
Next is the sisig. Chopped meat marinated in calamansi and spices traditionally served on a hot plate, the original version of this dish often incorporates parts of the pig less prized than the belly, such as ears and organs. CCLB, it seems, knows where its bread is buttered and has clearly devised its version from its crowning glory: leftover lechon.
Not that it’s just the same dish in smaller pieces. The sisig is more deliberately seasoned and has a deep saltiness and acidity not inherent to the larger pieces of lechon. Mixed in through rice it is an absolute delight, each mouthful a prized morsel of chilli, onion and crispy meat.
The pancit bihon provides a welcome respite from the pork. The light dish mixes both glassy rice (bihon) and slippery egg noodles, stir fried with capsicum and … oh wait, that is actually more pork. It is pleasingly chewy and slurpable, with a tinge of lemon and cabbage, for health.
Pinakbet is a mixed vegetable dish (vegetarians beware: it also contains pork) of green beans, eggplant and okra in a soy-based sauce. If you don’t like the sliminess of okra, it’s best to avoid this one, but personally I thought it gave the dish an unctuous texture that nicely coated the mouth with the umami-rich flavour of the sauce.
Between the four of us we paid $100 for enough food to make us unwell. The aforementioned bain-marie also contains a multitude of other options, including dinuguan (pig blood stew) for the brave and ribs for those who prefer their meat on the bone. These options change daily and are available for viewing on the restaurant’s Instagram. For fans of barbeque there is also the option of flame-grilled skewers of chewy pig intestine or sweet Cebuano chorizo.
There is nothing fancy about Cebu Charcoal Lechon Belly, but for those familiar with or perhaps missing the distinctive roast pork of the Philippines, I can think of no better option save flying to Cebu. Lechon is a celebration unto itself, a reminder of the power of simple things done right, like fire and pork, vinegar and rice.
Funnily enough, the simplest things can often be the hardest to perfect, which is why sometimes it’s better to leave it to professionals, which the chefs at this westside restaurant most certainly are.
