Larsian in Fuente Cebu

The place was not enough to accommodate for a lot of customers back then. People would
line up and take turns so they can enjoy their favorite barbecues. But since the rich history
of Larsian is instilled in the culture of Cebuanos, the government was able to find a place for
the whole barbecue sellers with hundreds of seats and tables to contain the jampacked
crowd of eaters.

You can simply take your pick from a long line of barbecue competitors that serve chicken
barbecue (breast, skin, wings, feet, thigh and skin), pork barbecue (intestines, liver, etc.)
and seafood (fish and squid). Hotdogs and chorizos are available also. And if there is one
thing that matches well with those “smoky” products then it would be the “puso”, or most
commonly known as “hanging rice”. Simply ready your sauces and order your beverages
then you’re good to go; just the kind of Larsian barbecue experience that one would
certainly remember and would surely go back for more.

History of Larsian

I didn’t know something about the history of Larsian it until I asked some of the elderly
people around the place. It was during the 70’s when a certain Col. Alvino Mondarez named
his eatery “Larsian” from the names of his mother (Pilar) and her twin sister (Siana). Just
combine the names and you know the rest. Although the eatery is not there anymore, the
name of Larsian remains as one of the most recognizable names in the downtown of Cebu.

Affordable Barbecue Trip “Larsian Cebu”

Cebu Larsian is one of Cebu’s most prominent eating havens.
Located at the uptown area near Fuente Osmeña and Chong Hua Hospital.
Cebu Larsian was an eatery in the early 70’s. It derived its name from the
owner’s (Col. Alvino Mondarez) mother named Pilar and her twin sister, Siana.
Put Pilar and Siana together and you get Larsian.
 @ Larsian

Today, Cebu Larsian is a place lined with a number of barbecue stands. The BBQ is fantastic!!
Among the selections of barbecues are: chicken;
either wings, thigh, skin, breast, feet or intestine, pork barbecue and pork liver,
seafood like squid and fish, chorizo, tocino and a whole lot more.
Cebu Larsian is really neutral ground. Different kinds of people eat there.
It’s cheaper than the popular food chains and is open till dawn.
It’s an ideal place to go at any time of night.

Larsian Barbeque, (Near Fuente). Best and the cheapest around the city.
The barbeque portions are small so you have enough space to store dessert. Try
various kinds of barbequed local delicacies not for the faint of heart: innards,
coagulated blood, squid, hotdogs aside from the usual pork and chicken varieties.
BARBEQUE HEAVEN AT CEBU'S LARSIAN

Can we be any more tourist-y?

Just like the Magellans Cross and the Sto. Nino Church, Larsian sa
Fuente has become one of Cebu's tourist attractions that you must go to during a
visit to the queen city of the South. What exacty is "Larsian", you ask? Just the
home of one of the country's best BBQ, thank you very much!
 The Larsian I grew up with looked sort of like an outdoor Wet Market
or "Palengke" if you will, but filled with BBQ stands. It was absolute mayhem trying
to get in, because there was smoke coming from all angles, and people (people I
could barely understand, mind you) would be screaming at you to buy from their
stand. You would sometimes step on something squishy.. something you could only
hope was a fallen piece of longganiza. Cars would zoom past you if you got too
close to the street, making it seem like you were actually risking your life for a stick
of BBQ. Was it worth it though?

Hell yeah!

Choose your poison. No pun intended

The Larsian of the New millennium is a far cry from the palengke
days of yesteryear. That, however, is more a testament to how lowly the conditions
were in the past than it is to how far they've come now. To be fair, Larsian isn't the
chaotic marketplace it once was. They now have tables, chairs, plastic covered
plates and.. wait for it... A ROOF!!!!! *gasp*

Larsian's wide selection of BBQ's to choose from ranges from your

traditional Pork and Chicken BBQ, and down to weirder stuff like the chicken
intestines, livers, hearts and stuff like that. They have another items but i couldn't
really make out what they were. I think one was pork cheeks. or at least that's
what it looked like. A personal favorite of mine is the Chicken ass and the
Longganiza.

Free Mineral water?

My favorite story about Larsian involves my brother, Ryan (The man

who makes the best lava cakes in the world, but that's an entirely different post).
One holy week, while my cousins and I were enjoying the beaches of Cebu, poor
Ryan was stuck in the hospital with a severe case of asthma. I'm not sure what
procedure he had to undergo, but he wasn't allowed to eat solid foods for a couple
of days.
 The day that he was allowed to finally eat, was coincidentally the same
day that my mom and I went to visit him. Since he hadn't eaten for a couple of
days, he was understandably grumpy. Ryan's face beamed up when my mom said
that the doctor had told her that he was allowed to eat solid foods for dinner, and
she was there to ask what he wanted her to bring for him.

"Larsian!", he immediately screamed out.

"Ok, how many pieces should I get?" my mom asked, while looking at me.

"Around 50!", Ryan quickly replied.

I shrugged and said "Yeah 50 sounds alright", thinking that would be

enough for the three of us, with plenty of leftovers to take home to our guests at
the beach.

Ryan looked at me with a frown and said, "Oh. You wanted some, too?"

And he was dead serious. He actually almost finished all the 50 pieces. But
please take note, the BBQ in question was smaller than the usual BBQ that we're
used to. (More like bite size little suckers) But it was still an impressive feat.

(Yup, he's my brother alright.)

I'm not sure if those were longganizas on the top right corner, or if it was supposed
to be grapes.

Larsian's concept is similar to that of "Dampa". You go into the place, you
choose the stall that you feel has the best BBQ (I honestly can't tell them apart),
and they'll thrown the BBQ's you hand picked onto the grill, and serve it to your
table. Each stall has their own name and their own come on.. like free soup and
free... are you ready for this... WATER!!! Honestly I can't tell one from the other, so
I can't give any recommendations. I just choose the stall that has the BBQ with the
most fat. Regardless, Expect to be swarmed like topless girl at Mardi gras.
 A big basket of puso always hits the spot.

Any Filipino who takes pride in being a Cebuano will be the first to tell
you that anything grilled cannot be eating without "Puso", which is technically rice
wrapped in banana leaves. (Those ARE banana leaves, right?) I'm actually too big
on plain rice, but when I eat puso, I'm left with a mountain full of banana leaves on
the table. I could easily go through ten of these bad boys. There's nothing really
outstanding about the flavor, but there's something that just feels right about it..
like they were meant to be together in your stomach. (Sort of like a gastronomic
love story if you will) If Aling Nene's has BBQ rice, and Inengs has Budbud rice,
Larsian's claim to fame is it's Puso.

Oh and you know what's cool about Larsian? You only pay for the
Puso that you eat. If they give you a big plate of twenty, they count what's left
over, and that's all they'll charge you for. My buddies Ted and Don must have had
at least 50 of these between themselves.. at least!
 DOH Approved?

I won't lie to you, Larsian isn't the classiest place you'll ever go
to. But with the renovations they've made, it won't be the worst, either. When you
walk in, the place is filled with the aroma of BBQ, so expect it to stick to your shirt
when you walk out. Perhaps the biggest turn off about Larsian would have to be the
outside area of it. There's no other way for me to describe it, except it smells like
blasts from the anus of Satan himself. I don't know, maybe it's all the animal
carcasses that they had to get rid of that did it. But it's just putrid. Thankfully, the
overwhelming smell of what's grilling inside will more than make up for it in the
end.
 Rina with her plastic covered plate

Hygienically speaking, I don't think it's the safest place to eat,

either. I haven't gotten sick from it , or anything like that (thank God), but.. let's
just say there are cleaner places on this Earth than Larsian. It's nice to see that
they're taking some steps to clean up though. Plates are wrapped in plastic bags,
and you're also given plastic bags to use as gloves. Not sure if that'll help if any
germs were actually on the food, but, it's the thought that counts I guess.
 Recess na!

The best way I could describe the interiors of Larsian is.. it kinda
looks like a school cafeteria. The long tables and benches coupled with the
galvanized steel roof really gives off that feel. Its not gonna win any design
competitions, but you know what? You'll go there for the food, not the architecture.
And besides.. It's a far cry from eating while standing up in the middle of the
street, just as was the Larsian of old.
 Longganiza, Pork BBQ, and Isaw. Two out of three isn't so bad.

Admittedly, the BBQ of Larsian won't blow your mind with it's
flavor. They use the sweet type of sauce that gives your BBQ a reddish hue..
something i'm not too particularly fond of because I know it's just a mix of tomato
ketchup, vinegar, and 7 UP. But with Larsian BBQ, after you take your first bite,
you're hooked. The taste is so addicting, you won't believe that it's only P5 pesos..
Then all of a sudden it's the best thing in the universe! The same goes for the
Longganiza. (They use quite fatty longganizas, and they deliberately char it to help
bring out the flavor).
 The stuffed squid everyone was raving about.

The ladies ordered the Stuffed Squid, (around P70 bucks I think) and
everyone who tried it seems to really love it. I didn't try it myself so I have no
opinion of it. I do like the idea though. They stuffed squid with the same things
they do with Cebuano lechon, (I think it's leeks and green onions, but i'm actually
just guessing) so when they throw it on the grill, the herbs smokes up the squid
meat, giving it an herby flavor. It actually sounds good in theory, but I really don't
eat squid.. So I'm going to have to say that I enjoyed it - in theory as well.
 Check out Don and Chai's plastic gloves

Larsian is also one of the few restaurants that is open during holy
week. (Lucky for us tourists hehe) I think it's because they get lots of customers
who buy up some BBQ (and puso) before heading off to the beach.
 My driver (since high school) in Cebu, Junie, always refuses to eat with me and my group
whenever we go out, no matter how many times I invite him. But when we go to Larsian,
he can't resist.

Despite the less than sophisticated atmosphere, Larsian is a food

experience one must not miss when visiting Cebu!

‘ Sa’man? Larsian?
If you have not heard of the word Larsian, then you probably haven't been around
Cebu. Larsian is one of Cebu's most prominent eating havens, one of the few that
passed the test of time. Located at the uptown area near Fuente Osmeña and
Chong Hua Hospital, Larsian’s general location offers a myriad of scenes that is
undeniably CEBUANO in charm.

Fuente Osmeña for one is a fountain landmark honoring one of the country’s
Presidents, Sergio Osmeña Sr., who hailed from the Island of Cebu. Also
commonplace around Larsian are children urging you to buy one of their
Sampaguita necklaces as you eat your food.

A true-blue Cebuana, it was only a few years ago that I noticed I know very little of
the history of Larsian, this place that I have come to love not only for its food, but
for the many memories that happened there. I then asked my mother who told me
the place used to be a restaurant in the 70's called Larsian, which somehow
retained its name long after the restaurant itself. I passed the information to my
friends who argued that wasn’t true, because what they knew was that Larsian was
a combination of two names. Little did I know that my mother and friends were both
correct. Larsian was an eatery in the early 70's that derived its name from the
owner's (Col. Alvino Mondarez) mother named Pilar and her twin sister, Siana. Put
Pilar and Siana together and you get Larsian.

Today Larsian is a place lined with a number of barbecue stands offering similar
barbecue selections. Among the selections are: chicken - wings, thigh, skin, breast,
feet or intestine; pork – pork liver, chorizo, tocino; seafood like squid and fish and a
lot more. You get to select any of those and hand them over to the one in charge to
be cooked. You are then asked how many puso (hanging rice) you want. The waiting
usually takes 10 – 15 minutes.

If you allow me to take a little trip back in the past: the old Larsian set-up show
tables lined up either inside the little stores or outside near a corner street. The
common decorations inside were outdated calendars featuring scantily clad women,
some Christmas lights and ceiling fans on low ceilings, a set-up that I personally
miss.

Just recently Larsian has been transferred to another location, albeit maybe just ten
paces away from the old one (yes, ten steps), and renamed The New Larsian. The
new set-up features a more organized and cleaner look with uniform tables and
stalls. Very little has changed, the food selection is the same as it should be and the
Sampaguita vendors are still around to either bother or charm you depending on
what type of predisposition you are keen to.

Larsian is neutral ground - loved by the rich and poor alike, the young and old, the
popular and the not so popular, the boisterous and the meek, the poetic and
unsympathetic – a place where people go to not for luxury but for the food and
mere experience. It opens from late afternoon up until dawn