Dumaguete’s beloved Buglas Isla Cafe opens its first branch in Metro Manila. Like its original location, the newly opened Arcovia, Pasig City branch features a relaxed, peaceful, and homey vibe.
Dumaguete’s finest
Buglas Isla has the eclectic menu of an all-day cafe. There’s a section for breakfast and brunch with ube pandesal, budbud kabug (a Negros Oriental specialty suman made from millet), eggs benedict, tapa, chicken and waffles, smoothie bowls, a not-to-be-missed smashed burger; the pizza section classics like margherita and pepperoni, but also a Buglas Signature with Cebu longanisa, Dumaguete chorizo, bacon, and pineapple. It’s the local food however, that is the true core of the restaurant.
First, there’s Tocino. “It’s the heart of our cuisine. Sinugba, food grilled over charcoal,” explains Raymond, whose family has its roots in Dumaguete. There, pork BBQ is tocino—skewers of everyone’s favorite sweet, cured pork breakfast food, grilled till the edges turn smoky and toasty. From sunset to late into the night, stalls line a section of the city’s Rizal Boulevard, and the mouth-watering fragrance of grilling tocino wafts into the air. At Buglas Isla though, tocino is not just pork, but also juicy chicken tails, chicken intestines and gizzards, crisp chicken skin, and Cebu longanisa. The restaurant has taken Dumaguete’s ubiquitous street food and made it their own. It’s marinated, then grilled over Binchotan charcoal, a special Japanese oak charcoal that’s prized for being exceptionally long-burning, smokeless, and odorless. The tocino is dunked into another sweet glaze, briefly grilled again to caramelize its flavors, and finished with a brush of Buglas Isla’s special chicken oil. It isn’t until you’ve savored the layers of flavor, that you realize how much work has gone into that simple stick of tocino.
The same can be said of all Buglas Isla’s dishes. The chicken oil served as an accompaniment for the tocino is infused with lemongrass, onions, and other aromatics for one month. The restaurant also makes its own sukang sinamak. The Dumaguete Lechon is crisp-skinned, and tasty to its center, redolent with lemongrass and garlic.
Beef Kansi is also on the menu. It’s a dish often described as the Negrense version of sinigang, but in reality has an identity of its own. Slow-cooked beef shanks and meaty young jackfruit are served in a gently-sour broth. The souring agent is batwan, a fruit that grows in Negros Island. It has a tame sort of sourness, fruity, and is less acidic than tamarind or kamias. The batwan broth, and the citrusy and peppery flavors of lemongrass, ginger, and annatto are what give kansi its Negrense flavor.
And then there’s the famous Dumaguete chorizo or chorizo bungkag. Quite a number of families in Negros Oriental are of Spanish descent, and most have their own heirloom recipe for chorizo that is garlicky, laced with Spanish paprika, and cooked without a casing or bungkag (a Cebuano word for fallen apart or disintegrated). Anthony Raymond’s family is no different, and it is his grandmother’s treasured heirloom recipe that Buglas Isla uses, its chefs having been sworn to secrecy over the recipe. The chorizo leaves a surprising burst of fire on the palate. Rather than simply garlic and paprika, a complex medley of warm spices leaves you spooning up more and more, in between soothing bites of rice.
The desserts are not to be missed. Sans Rival and Silvanas, two sweets Dumaguete is famous for, are on the menu of course. The Silvanas are Buglas Isla style—several inches thick, as big as a hand, filled with buttercream, but not cloyingly sweet. There’s also an intriguing Taho Cheesecake and Puto Maya with Sikwate (purple rice suman paired with native chocolate).
The vibe
To reflect the feel of the old hacienda that houses the original Buglas Isla in Dumaguete, the interiors include old wood and other native materials, some of which were shipped to Metro Manila to create the hacienda look. Those who have been to the original Buglas Isla in Dumaguete City will recognize the feeling— relaxed, like sinking into long-awaited vacation or visiting a treasured family home. And that is exactly the vibe that the owners of the cafe want to convey.
“The most challenging part was replicating the authenticity and humbleness of service that is so typical in Dumaguete, bringing it to Metro Manila, and sustaining it. But that’s part of the charm of Dumaguete, and we really want Buglas Isla Cafe to carry that. It took a lot of training and HR work,” said Anthony Raymond, Chief Operating Officer of Riesa Management, Inc., the company behind Buglas Isla Cafe.
Translating the feel of the old hacienda that houses the original Buglas Isla in Dumaguete was easier, he added. Old wood for the pillars, and gently curved balusters to line the bar were shipped to Metro Manila from Dumaguete. The use of rattan, capiz shells, softly glowing yellow lights, and cement finish walls pull together the look of a hacienda home.
Buglas Isla Cafe in ArcoVia is the first of several branches planned around the country. A second recently opened in the group’s Cala Laiya hotel in Batangas, and a third is set to open soon in Alabang. “We want to bring Dumaguete’s cuisine to the rest of the country,” Raymond expresses. At Buglas Isla, the heart of Dumaguete is expressed in everything that your eyes, ears, and mouth encounter.