Laguna Garden Café: A taste of home

After its 6th anniversary celebration recently, we can now live to eat. The restaurant that began as a labor of love for the Urbina family proved once more, as the family puts it, that the best way to anyone's heart is through delicious cooking.

Just as the Filipinos are part Malay, Chinese, and Spanish, so is the cuisine of the seven-thousand-island Philippine nation. One can also taste the subtle hints of Indian, Mexican, and American influences. What is life without Filipino dishes that are the blending of the various cooking styles and cultures that influenced the Filipino?

Philippine cooking as one American food critic friend put it, is "sophisticated and exotic." There is a description though, from another friend, that is less flattering - Filipino cuisine cannot be considered "high class", but can be called "delicious". For me, this is a cuisine that blends the familiar with the exotic.

Laguna Garden Café's chef Raki Urbina said that Filipino cuisine is the simplest cuisine in the world. Filipino cooking is easy, so it is never an arduous task to explore Filipino cuisine. Chef Raki has tried bringing the simplicity of the cuisine to American palates.

The Americans, as well as the other nationalities dining at Laguna Garden, find the food wholesome and delicious. Laguna Garden Café began as a typical small carenderia along Torralba Street, near Camp Lapu-Lapu. It has always served authentic Filipino dishes with a "distinctive taste incomparable to this day."

Chef Raki was one of the talented chefs featured during the culmination program of one of Cebu's most ambitious events - International Culinary Congress 2005 - wherein he highlighted Vietnamese cuisine. He took up an Advanced Culinary Arts Program at the Culinary Institute of America at Graystone, Napa Valley, California.

"My mother (Lita Urbina), who comes from a long line of fine cooks, decided to open her own carenderia. She named it Mother's Best. In 1991, she renovated and expanded the area, transforming the carenderia into a place of fine dining. It became known as Café Laguna," Grace Urbina Absin, one of the owners and the restaurant manager, explained. After the renovation and expansion, the carenderia that served sumptuous Filipino dishes became well known as one of Cebu's best dining places. Mrs. Lita Urbina's culinary expertise has become a part of the lives of so many Cebuanos as they have come back for more. Café Laguna, which was known for puto-bumbong (sticky rice called tapul that is steamed and served with grated coconut and sugar), is truly blessed. In 1994, Mrs. Urbina opened Café Laguna at the Ayala Center. It has just celebrated its 11th anniversary.

Laguna Garden Café, a 2-storey building that looks more like the home of a Spanish Gobernador General than a restaurant, is located at the back of the Ayala Center. Its Filipino Spanish design is distinctive and the place opened to the public in 1999. Café Laguna, on the other hand, celebrated its 11th year last September 28, 2005 with an on-sight cooking and grilling buffet. The food was downright delicious.

Chef Raki said that they would be launching new Filipino menus soon, not fusion, but authentic culinary treasures of the regions. He plans to travel to every region of the country to fully understand the style of cooking and to learn how it should be done. The traditional Filipino cuisine that we know now are categorized into regional cuisines. Chef Raki's plan is interesting. We look forward to authentic regional dishes at their fine dining outlets soon.

Laguna Garden Café has introduced to other nationalities that Filipino food is good and can be compared to the best of the world's cuisines. Once you experience dining at Laguna Garden Café, you will be hooked for life. But for now, go easy on the lumpia and the adobo. Careful with the waistline!