Cebu - Wicker Park Filipino restaurant

We visited Cebu (Wicker Park, does not appear to be affiliated with a former Downers Grove restaurant of the same name back in the mid-2000s) for Filipino food last week. I believe they opened about a year ago. I'm only moderately familiar with Filipino food but liked what we tried, though there did seem to be a sweet salty soy flavor profile to most of our dishes.

Unfortunately no photos (though there are lots on Yelp), beyond 1 photo of a particularly pretty cocktail (Butterflies in the Attic), with ube-infused gin, cucumber and mint.


It was a great summer evening to dine on their outdoor patio in the back of the restaurant. Good service, good food, and it's in our neighborhood.

We enjoyed:
Pan de Sal - soft, slightly sweet, housemade rolls (4 for $3) served with honey butter. Delicious; would have been fantastic if they were warm, but served at room temperature (still, they were clearly freshly made that day).

Ensalada - shredded napa cabbage dressed with a light sweet and sour vinaigrette (made with pinakurat, apparently a Filipino spiced vinegar, and calamansi, the Filipino citrus fruit), but the most interesting thing on the salad was a hard boiled salted duck egg, which I've had frequently in Chinese cuisine but never on a salad. There aren't lots of vegetables on the menu, so this was our "green" dish.

Pork BBQ Skewers - 6 pretty large, juicy and tender, grilled pork skewers, basted with a soy glaze. Nothing not to like.

Sizzling Gambas - definitely similar to Spanish sizzling gambas - a fairly large portion of shrimp in a sweet salty garlic soy sauce, with lots of red chili flakes. Salty and spicy, though I don't recall them particularly sizzling when served (they were hot in temperature, just not sizzling). These were really good and worth getting a side of steamed rice to go with the garlic sauce.

Bam-I - Filipino pancit, and a large portion for $18. I'm not a fan of Chinese sausage, but still liked the dish a lot!

Portions were large enough that we took home half of our Bam-I and did not have room for the very pretty desserts.

Would go again, ideally with someone other than my clean-eating husband, who was not interested in the Lechon Belly (crispy skin-on pork belly, which looked delicious).

Cebu
2211 W North Ave
Chicago IL
https://cebuchicago.com/

The trio of siblings behind Cebu, a busy Wicker Park Filipino restaurant, are preparing to launch a sweet suburban offshoot. Cybill, Marlon, and Malvin Tan plan to open Cafe Cebu this fall in Naperville featuring Asian and French pastries, ice cream made on site, and boba drinks.

https://chicago.eater.com/2021/10/19/22 ... -ice-cream

Dave148 wrote:

The trio of siblings behind Cebu, a busy Wicker Park Filipino restaurant, are preparing to launch a sweet suburban offshoot. Cybill, Marlon, and Malvin Tan plan to open Cafe Cebu this fall in Naperville featuring Asian and French pastries, ice cream made on site, and boba drinks.

https://chicago.eater.com/2021/10/19/22 ... -ice-cream

Open = Cafe Cebu, 790 Royal St. George Drive, Naperville = https://www.cafecebu.com/

Here is information on the other Cebu restaurant that closed a number of years ago. I remember they had some very interesting presentations of Filippino food.

Regards,
Cathy2