Canvas Bistro Bar Gallery of Cebu: A Fabulous Lunch During Sinulog Weekend

Wazzup Pilipinas!

I visited Cebu during the last weekend of the Sinulog Festivities from January 15 to 17. But before that highly anticipated day came, I was already planning where to stay and of course where to dine.

I already was scheduled to stay at the Waterfront Airport Hotel and Casino with a special breakfast and lunch for a day packaged with my stay. However, I would be staying in Cebu for three days. Normally, the hotel will only provide a complimentary breakfast, so lunch and dinner requirements will be my task for the three days I will be staying in Cebu.

What was my strategy for Sinulog weekend? I inquired  from Cebu-based restaurants if they will be interested in sponsoring a meal at their restaurant in exchange for a feature article in my blog. I told them it would be great if I can visit their restaurant while I'm there so I can share the dining experience.

I don't think a lot of bloggers would want to go all the way to another province just for a special treat in a restaurant. But my adventure was far more than ordinary. I wanted to make my Cebu trip a very memorable one.

Thanks to the very friendly Alyzza, and Australian Chef Steve Shrimski and his Filipina wife Eya, of Canvas Bistro Bar Gallery, I had the great opportunity to taste some of their culinary specialties.

Salarium Takes Startup Perks to the Next Level by Sending Employees to See the World

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Working in a startup is not for the faint of heart. It is only for the ambitious and bold. The pressure is high, the expectations are immensely great, deadlines are short and drastic changes come more often than bathroom breaks. Despite this, most millennials would prefer a role in a cool tech startup rather than becoming another employee number in a stodgy corporate company. Why is that so? Startups provide exciting work environments - a fridge full of beer, a fancy espresso machine, fast computers with large monitors, free lunch, movie nights out and more. Salarium, one of the Philippines’ up and coming SaaS & Fintech Startups, takes the perks game to the next level by sending employees on an adventure to see the world.

When Salarium employees celebrate their anniversary, and every year thereafter, they are given a 5-day mandatory vacation to any place in Southeast Asia that they wish to visit. The company pays for everything hotel, flight, including the employee’s plus one. Few companies offer such a reward to staff but Salarium did not hesitate to give this amazing perk to their employees.

“We thought very hard about an incentive that would be impactful to employees. We wanted to provide something that employees would look forward to while leaving a positive impact in their lives. Also, we wanted to give an experience as an incentive so it cannot be simply given to someone else. There is a tendency in Filipino culture to share what you have with the family so a cash incentive would simply be split up amongst family members instead of being fully enjoyed by the person who earned it,” says Judah Hirsch, CEO & Founder of Salarium. 

Go Go Cafe of Cebu: A Truly Inspiring Story for Everyone

Wazzup Pilipinas!

An added destination to my trip in Cebu was at the Go Go Cafe owned by Go Morita, a Japanese who now lives in Cebu and is also popularly called the Tonkatsu man. He has recently partnered just about three months ago with a Filipino to setup his own restaurant in the province of Cebu.

It was so inspiring to learn that just after a few months of peddling his own creations infront of IT Park of Cebu, the construction of his restaurant was already in the works.

I went to Cebu mainly for the Sinulog 2016 festivities, but he caught my attention when he was featured at a popular local TV network.

The timing was perfect because I was on my way to Cebu for that weekend and finding out a story like his brought me to courageously look for his restaurant somewhere at P. Remedios street in Banilad.

The restaurant was simple in design yet attractive already. The big signage of Go Go Cafe was very evident and catchy. His logo represents a running man in the middle of which Go Morita explained was running towards the cafe. This was because his food was so hard to resist that people may want to rush ahead just to catch his food still available at the cafe.