Quest Hotel
Quest Log
A highly rated destination for executives and businessfolk, The Quest Hotel in Cebu City gave writer Chris Cruz and photographer Emman Peregrin an ideal stay, and a glimpse into what best satisfies the busiest and most restless of travelers
WORDS BY CHRIS CRUZ
IMAGES BY EMMAN PEREGRIN
Most days, it’s hard to get out of bed, especially if you’ve got a busy day ahead of you. Yeah, you know that kind of day – the one where you’ve got a mile-long laundry list of tasks you don’t want to deal with but have no choice to because they won’t fix themselves. Luckily, waking up in a room at The Quest Hotel in Cebu City doesn’t give you that sluggish- gawd-just-five-more-minutes desire to snuggle yourself into Lethe-level oblivion. There is something smart and invigorating about the place. Perhaps it’s the simplicity of their room designs, done with little fuss but bearing all the amenities you could need for a temporary base of operations. I was happy enough with having a flatscreen TV, reliably solid wi-fi, strategically located power outlets, and a tidy little balcony with a bracing view to clear my head and watch the Cebu cityscape go whizzing by. Or maybe it was the fact that the place was spotless – not antiseptically, forensically scrubbed, mind you – just noticeably spic-and-span, yet warm and inviting enough, but not too much. That’s the thing about Quest – it’s really a business hotel so it’s optimized for transients who have Other Important Stuff to Do. Want to laze the day away? Hit up a resort and snooze beneath the tropical sun beside a frosty margarita. But if you want to see the sights or have got a lot to take care of in as little time as possible, Quest is right for you.
QUEST CHAIN
I had heard that Cebu City and its environs have a lot to offer the casual tourist or the intrepid explorer. Quest Hotel had a whole list of places they could take me to and I was getting the rundown for the more popular ones. The Cebu Heritage Tour would take me to historical sites such as the Basilica Minore del Santo Nino, Fort San Pedro, the Yap-Sandiego Ancestral Home, and that most vaunted of Cebu City’s landmarks, Magellan’s Cross. The View from the Top Tour offered exactly that: the highest spots in the city, from a Taoist temple to a lofty jaunt up a mountain.
Marine life enthusiasts can observe or even snorkel next to lively whale sharks in Tan-awan, 10 kilometers off the town of Oslob. Another option is Kawasan Falls, a three-tiered waterfall pouring into a hidden jungle basin of breathtakingly bright turquoise. For the more devout Catholic pilgrim, Cebu boasts Simala Church, which houses the Miraculous Mother Mary at the Monastery of the Holy Eucharist, of whom testimonials by the faithful claim many a divine intervention of healing. Sports aficionados needn’t worry though, because Papa Kit’s Marina and Fishing Lagoon has something for them too; horseback riding, zip-lining, wall-climbing, All-Terrain- Vehicles, fishing and wakeboarding, to name a few.
As intriguing as all these activities were, I only had time for a few stops so I went with a straightforward date with Cebu City and signed up for a compressed version of the heritage tour.
ESCORT MISSION
Our first stop, the Heritage of Cebu Monument, was a fascinatingly eclectic hodgepodge of sculptures and images presenting the highlights of this city’s history in a nutshell. Conceived and constructed by local artist Eduardo Castrillo, the monument shows the conversion of Rajah Humabon and his followers to Christianity, Ferdinand Magellan’s defeat at the hands of Lapu- Lapu, notable buildings such as the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral and the St. John the Baptist Church, and famous Cebuanos such as St. Pedro Calungsod and former Philippine President Sergio Osmena.
There were a lot of old houses nearby such as the Yap-Sandiego Ancestral Home, a stately early Spanish Colonial structure all bedecked in flags and colored lanterns. Many of these old houses were converted into museums, such as the Casa Gorordo. I marveled at the unique coral stone facades of these homes, a feature I hadn’t seen in structures of the same period built in either Northern Luzon nor in Manila. Coral was more common in Cebu’s seas back in the day, and was a popular construction material. Casa Gorordo also had a shop selling the usual tourist kitsch, but also some rather captivating collectibles such as porcelain plates made Delft-style and coffee table books. What caught my fancy were toothsomely sweet dried mangoes covered in a variety of things such as caramel, chocolate, pili nuts and cashews – all cleverly packaged in boxes that resembled CD cases.
Those were most certainly My Greatest Hits, very much reflective of how despite my tight schedule and quick stay, Quest was able to curate for me the premium essentials and only the best.
PUSÔ RESTAURANT: Custom Consumption
Cebuanos love food as much as any Filipino would, and that’s saying quite a bit. It’s not hard to find a good restaurant in the city, so Pusô Restaurant has its work cut out for it. Fortunately, Chef Danilo “Danny” Gonzales, executive chef of Puso, has taken up the gauntlet – challenge accepted.
“Quest Hotel opened in September 2012, but we re-launched Pusô in January of this year,” he recounted. “ We changed everything like the setup, the layout and, of course, the food. But what we really want to introduce in this hotel is the name of Pusô itself (rice wrapped and boiled in a triangular casing made of woven coconut leaves) – we’re all about Filipino food. We upgraded the classic taste of our dishes, to cater to foreign as well as local clients. It’s typical Filipino taste, but with a whole new interpretation.”
Jeremy Tongco, Pusô’s food and beverage manager, explained how he bolsters the other part of that culinary equation. “The ingredients we source are mostly local,” he revealed. “We have some partners abroad who supply us with (things like) prime cut meats. Around 60 percent of our vegetables, fruits and meats are organic,” he pointed out, which is not surprising, considering a number of Puso’s buffet items are vegetables and seaweed unique to Cebu.
“There’s a freshness you get from home cooking which we want to bring to our diners,” added Chef Danny. “Most Filipino households have someone who can cook sinigang (meat and vegetables in sour broth) but it’s another thing entirely to present it as fresh. We want people to see that it’s piping hot, freshly cooked, with fresh vegetables and adjustable to suit a variety of tastes. Whatever you find delicious, that’s what we always have in mind, and the options that we add are how we make that happen.”
“Initially, we did some experiments before,” Tongco elaborated. “Dishes that didn’t work out with our guests were promptly dropped – the ones that worked out ultimately became things like our Sinigang Station. We also tried Chef Danny’s specialty which is sisig (pig face and ears finely chopped and fried on a hot plate). It was a hit, so we made a Sisig Station which we have once a week. We have different kinds of sisig such as pork, chicken, squid and tuna. It also has different sauces.” The end result of this grassroots level of ingenuity and intrepidness are some of the most original buffet stations I’ve ever seen, such as a Champorado (chocolate rice porridge) Station, complete with toppings of every kind, from marshmallows to pinipig (popped rice), to candied sprinkles and dried herring (which is a traditional topping that's understandably strange for most non-Filipinos). Other hot spots, such as their Salad Bar, have more toppings and condiments than you’d ever thought possible.
Oh, what endless fun. Don’t forget to pack your imagination and creativity. You'll need it to build your own combos at every stop.
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