Café de Cebu

My mom loves ordering food here. Usually when I come over her house, there’s always lechon, sisig and denuguaan. (Did I spell that right? lol.)
Anyway, I’ve tried so many dishes and its usually a hit or miss. Loved the lechon but sometimes it is soggy or not crispy. The sisig is ok. Kare kare was good. The lumpia, not so much. Halo halo is always good, but if they have it, try the ube cheesecake. Not the best either, but I don’t hate it. Don’t bother getting the pansit. Was definitely not a fan of that. What I do LOVE is the Isaw! Yum! I’ve tried a bunch of other dishes here, but what is safe to order is the isaw. If you like intestines and all… haha.
Food does get super oily, and sometimes it doesn’t seem freshly made. Let’s just hope you go on the days when it’s not too bad.
I’ll definitely come back, it’s one of the better Filipino spots here in Vegas.

This is my first experience with Filipino food. I ordered the Lech on De Cebu and my friend ordered the barbecue chicken. We both got the garlic rice to accompany our meals. The wait staff was spot on and very attentive. The food was extraordinary good. If this is how the food in the Philippines is I can see moving there just for the food. I definitely recommend this restaurant.

If I could give 3.5 stars I would. The server was pleasant and cheerful. The food was fairly authentic but too simple to be interesting.
We ordered grilled milkfish, a spicy pork dish served on a sizzling platter and crispy calamari as an appetizer.
The place is really small but tidy. The sign out front does nothing to help them bring in customers.
If I am in the area and desire Filipino food I would stop in again.

OMG, the pork goodness is off the chart at this place. Remember to use the table vinegar to cut the Lechon belly. Get the fried spinach and a side of garlic rice and I almost ate the fork too!

Service was excellent. Had the ox tail soup which was great. Bangus was amazing as well. Overall great food and service. Found my new Filipino food spot.

TFC is on tv!
I’m not used to the Cebu style Filipino food. Not necessarily my taste. Everything was very flavorful. I like how they serve some items on the banana leaf. They were very kind to offer us a free item for us to try.
I did like the lechon.
They have a lunch menu. Don’t pass that up if you arrive before 3pm.

Was missing my mom’s home cooked meals and I definitely can’t cook the way she does so after finding Café de Cebu on Unilocal I had to fulfill my cravings. Was kinda skeptical cos Filipino restaurants are always a hit/​miss for me and i always prefer home-​cooked, but it wasn’t that case here! This place was super clean, probably the cleanest Filipino restaurant I’ve been to lol, and the food was ugh soooo good!
When I first walked in alone the lady greeted me and I said I wanted to do to-​go. She was asking me if I’ve come before and all and I said it was my first time and she was like «why don’t you just eat here, I can talk with you» and she was so kind, so I decided yannoe what I can eat here by myself! Haha. She asked me what I liked and when i mentioned Kare Kare, she told me it was her favorite too and I had to get it! I also got the free Cebu Style Lumpia with my check in. Holy moly, the Kare Kare was phenomenal. It was SO rich with flavor and the meat was super tender. I can’t believe I am actually going to say this because I NEVER do, but I think this was actually better than my mom’s Kare Kare… Oops… IT WAS SO GOOD! It’s a must try forsure. As for the Cebu Lumpia, very interesting flavor! Lol I’ve never tried it before since I’m just used to the lumpia shanghai. The Cebu style has sweet stuff inside, idk if it’s my cup of tea, but it is interesting.
Anyway, service was great and good was amazing. I will definitely be coming back! Super excited to try more!

I am not a Cebuana but this is my go to spot whenever in Vegas. Sarap ng Chicken skin, Lechon belly, Bagoong Fried Rice and Bulalo. On our last visit, we had the Sinigang Belly Lechon and Pork Barbecue. If only I can come here everyday … Lols !!! There are still more on the menu list that I have yet to try.

Small location but very friendly staff. We ordered chicken bbq, bicol express, fried kangkong. The bicol express was very good & spicy. The kangkong was needing some seasoning, the bbq was just okay. We got the free ngo-​yong (fried eggroll bamboo shoots with 5 spice) for checking in. Wasn’t really my taste. Being Chinese we have a different meat 5 spice egg roll.
Everything was expensive for the serving size. There are other places just as good & more affordable.

Every plate was delicious! The lechon, sinigang, bangus (fried & grilled), Kare Kare & last but not least the halo halo was good too! The server (Alex) was awesome! He made our experience even better.
Family friendly place… I’d recommend this restaurant to my mom!

We visited this place because it was one of the places that offers lechon from Cebu. To our surprise, they also offered something unique, Lechon Sinigang, which we thought was a nice variation to the Sinigang way of cooking but personally, I prefer the traditional Sinigang and the traditional way that lechon is served. A bit on the pricey side but within reason. Will come back when given the chance.

I really wanted to love love this place but unfortunately it fell super short tonight.
See I drove all the way from the South part of town, about 35 – 40 minutes one way on a Saturday night.
I was definitely expecting very good food and dessert!
We ordered the infamous ½ lb lechon, Kare Kare, lechon fried rice and bag-​yo beans.
Lechon was cold and not crispy, Kare Kare was too sweet and even sweeter is the bagoong. lechon fried rice came later and even that is nothing special. Bag-​yo beans wasn’t too bad and probably the best out of all.
As for dessert, I knew I wanted to get the ube cheesecake and Taho to go.
We got the Taho to go, my friend wanted to see how it looked like so she opened it and it smelled like ARMPIT! It was old PANIS TAHO! I smelled it and it was foul.
I called our servers attention and told her it smelled bad– she smelled it and said nothing was wrong–
hold on, excuse me– you’re telling me that two of us can smell bad panis Taho & you can’t? Come on now.
She was going to change it and I said no thank you, I’ll leave without the Taho.
Customer service was superb though– very helpful and very attentive. 6 stars for customer service!
It breaks my heart that I had to write this review but bad food on a Saturday night? It should be bustling with fresh great foods all day all night– not cold old leftovers. Sorry but probably won’t be back again.

I’ve been coming here for a while now with my family and friends. We also order our lechon from here for special occasions. Sometimes they won’t have stuff from the menu like the lechon which is what they’re known for and its a little annoying but we just end up getting something else and it’s always good. One time they gave us a free order of lumpia coz they didn’t have something we wanted lol My favorites are the bagoong rice and the BBQ pork. The bagoong rice comes with mangoes on top and it’s delicious! The BBQ pork is nice and tender and flavorful. Don’t get their Taho. It was weird tasting. The service is a bit on the slow side when they’re busy but the servers are always very friendly and nice.

When me and my friend tried this place, we were the only ones in there. The man who was serving us seemed a bit busy since he was always on his phone, possibly a business call of some sort. Didn’t really bother us unless we needed some attending to. There was quite a few times in which I found myself having the need to raise my voice for his attention which was quite embarrassing as I’m very quiet to begin with.
Not going to judge the service heavily for this rating, but the food. I was sick on the day that I visited here so I wanted something warm and soupy to fill my needs. I opted to the tinola as it was one of my favorite Filipino dishes. This particular dish was very flavorful with the right amount of ginger, chicken broth in it. The chicken was super tender that they could literally rip away from the bone when touched, but the thing that was super alarming about it was that the papaya that they used was HARD. I was a bit disappointed about that because we already waited a while for the food just to be serves under cooked vegetables along with my meal. I was seriously excited about the papaya being tender to chew, but this was not the case.
My friend got the lechon, which he wasn’t impressed with as the flavor just wasn’t there. Did they seriously just take the meat and decide to fry it all together? It needed more kick to the flavor like spices, and possibly more salt.
At the end of the meal, I got the taro cheesecake which was pretty impressive. The texture was delicious, and I love the visible sign of the purple taro in there, and of course you can taste a hint of it. The size is pretty small which was a bit disappointing because it was the only one I really enjoyed during the visit.
I might try this place out again for other types of food, but as of today, when I think of this restaurant, I think of red flags in my head. I hate ever saying that about a restaurant because I always want to see potential in everyone, but this one was just a tad bit disappointing.

After searching far and wide (a few swipes here and there) for a good Filipino place near my neighborhood, I came across this restaurant on Unilocal.
I was actually surprised that on my first visit here, the restaurant was so dead. We were the only ones there, so of course we got the servers undivided attention. Although we were the only ones for a good hour, our server was great with timing and chatting. He didn’t smother us with attention, which I really appreciate in service.
While looking at the reviews on Unilocal,I read that their lechon is some of the best. Unfortunately, we did not give it a try today. We did however, try the:
1. Café de Cebu fried rice, which had a very good amount of lechon chunks in it as stated in the description of the menu.
2. Kare-​Kare, in my opinion it was made decently. A little too much oil for my liking, but my mother seemed to enjoy it. The meat was cooked just to perfection and eating it, really made me feel at home.
3. Fried Boneless Bangus, this dish was by far my favorite here. The fish was crunchy, moist, and cooked to absolute perfection.
Lastly, we shared a bowl of halo-​halo. We laughed at the fact that they substituted the usual crunchy stuff for cereal, but it actually complimented the dessert well. It wasn’t too sweet and it was made just right. Considering I never really enjoyed halo-​halo, I really liked the one I had today.

Service was phenomenal!
Food was delicious!
Great experienced!
Thank you!
We will definitely come back!

We were so excited to try this place out. Before our trip to Vegas, I’ve searched Unilocal for Filipino restaurants. When I looked at all the pictures from Café de Cebu everything looked so delicious. We couldn’t wait to try it out.
We got here and ordered the ngo Yong which we got for free by check in in through Unilocal.We also tried their lechon, crispy kangkong, bbq pork, dinuguan and fried calamari. The food was ok. My husband and I weren’t to fond of the dinuguan or the fried calamari which seemed a little overcooked. But the lechon and the bbq pork were delicious. The service was great. The guy that took our order and very nice that I feel bad giving them 3 stars but besides the lechon and the bbq, the other items we ordered was just ok.
Definitely check them out though because the lechon was delicious!

This has to be the most disappointing visit. I remember this place having the best lechon and lechon sauce. Well today that wasn’t the case, the lechon was dry, oily and skin was not crunchy. It was so sad, we recieved our free Ngo-​yong egg roll and it came glossed with oil and cold inside.
Ordered crispy calamari, was not crispy at all and batter fell off every piece. The calamari wasn’t even cleaned properly you can see the skin and guts. The order of crispy Kang Kong was as disppointing as the calamari, the supposedly tempura batter was hard and filled with oil. You can literally squeeze oil out. They served this with their garlic mayo which just tasted like old mayo. Had the oxtail bulalo, which you would think would be oxtail right? Well there was oxtail but they mixed another cut of beef, so upsetting. To top it off we had 3 of each chicken and pork bbq, they were served med rare. They weren’t cooked all the way through.
I liked this place and wish it was back to what it was before. They seem like they’re just cutting corners and it’s just completely disheartening to know that restaurants especially filipino restaurants will serve this food without thought of standard.
I guarantee you that Filipinos are proud of their food and these restaurants give the cuisine a bad name.

Items Selected:
Krispy Kang-​Kong — Crispy battered water spinach with garlic mayo dip
Ngo-​yong — Cebu’s Chinese Fried Vegetable Lumpia made up of ubod, palm heart flavored with Chinese five-​spice powder called Ngohiong
Lechon Belly de Cebu — Slow roasted and seasoned boneless pork belly
Chicken Skin BBQ — Chicken skin marinated and grilled in our special barbecue sauce
Halo-​Halo
Ube Cheesecake
Cookie Butter Pie
Located in the cozy corner of a shopping plaza on West Flamingo, Filipino stalwart Café de Cebu had long been on my radar despite a brief October closure by the Health Department for questionable refrigeration practices, and recently reminded of the space by the words of a friend it was for dinner on the night before Memorial Day that I finally stopped in to find myself the only diner in the space, a pleasant experience had thanks to 1-​on-​1 service more than happy to educate me on a cuisine and culture of which I admittedly have much to learn.
Proudly displaying accolades from the local press for a sizable menu filled with traditional fare straight out of proprietor Mary Villarante’s native Philippines, a meal at Café de Cebu is likely to find unprepared or timid at a bit of a loss, but with ample descriptions provided both in print and from the waitstaff the biggest question becomes one of portions and predilections, a whole lot of offal to be found amidst items slightly more familiar, the first timer encouraged to do their research and ask advice as ‘signatures’ proved to be not only accessible, but also quite good.
Told that no diner at Cebu should go without the Ngo-​yong or highly praised pork belly it was with an order of the former that dining commenced and originally serenaded by a native cooking show with subcaptions I admittedly played the ‘dumb American’ in requesting *my* native Cavaliers be turned on instead, the crunchy fried cylinders of pork and hearts of palm rich in cloves as well as allspice proving a bit too heavy to be fully enjoyed in such quantity, though certainly something worth sharing amongst friends.
Moving on to a substantial bowl of fried spinach that thankfully suffered from far less sog than did the aforementioned eggrolls, suffice it to say that this $ 3.99 dish easily justifies its cost despite falling just short of that at Nittaya’s in terms of delicacy while the barbeque chicken skins glazed in sweet sauce prove an equally impressive value for just two-​dollars more, even if the crisp flesh isn’t exactly the easiest thing to liberate from a thin skewer of wood.
At this point turning my full attention to the restaurant’s signature item, my order apparently amongst the last bits left from a fifty-​pound roast to begin the day, there is no doubt a reason that many have called the Lechon de Cebu one of the city’s best pieces of pork, and costing just $ 1 an ounce with orders as small as a half-​pound available the small bowl proved just enough for one as skin shattered like glass over supple flesh, a trio of sauces ranging from fermented and funky to sweet and saline each proving more than adequate to temper the fat.
Unfortunately sold out of several traditional sweets, but offering a few specials in addition to the laminated menu’s offerings, it was with a large bowl of Halo-​Halo that a sampling of desserts began and although the purple ube ice cream was a bit less flavorful that I’d have expected the amalgam of textures beneath it was more than happy to compensate — everything from melons to corn and gelatin dispersed amongst ice crystals and cream in a portion more than adequate to share, the same not to be said of tiny circles of inconsequential pie and cheesecake, though at $ 2 each both the quality and quantity here, too, seemed quite fair.

If like me you’ve been searching from Honolulu to NYC for Visayan style Filipino food you can breathe a sigh of relief because Las Vegas has a true Visayan style restaurant and it’s even named after my fave Island in the Philippines; Cebu. To make it even better I got a free Ngoyong when I checked in on Unilocal!This place is a Paradise with everything tasting so delicious. We had the Chicken BBQ and it just reminded me of Larshians in Cebu!
The staff were super friendly and the price is just right! I can’t wait to visit again and try the rest of the menu.