The enigmatic octopus has long held the academe and the everyman’s fascination with its curious form, intelligent behavior, and amazing abilities. I’d go about enumerating its characteristics but this counts well beyond its standard number of tentacles. To pick one, what would easily roll out of my mouth is that the species would be quite delicious in it.
“Ironically, we don’t serve octopus here,” Chef Jay Garife says of his Kugita Seafood & Charcoal Grill. “I love octopus, too, but [Netflix’s] My Octopus Teacher made me love it a different way now. Also, most customers found it too cute to eat.”
We took a very welcome break from the city confines down to the Southwest coast of Cebu for the resort and diving mecca of Moalboal, to hit Trip Advisor’s number-one-rated restaurant in the locale.
The lliganon native, Garife, is a storied one making a movable feast through his work abroad and on the home front. From his experiences at Tsunami Sushi at Huntington Beach, California then at the brand’s Jaco Beach, Costa Rica location as their executive chef, he came home to graduate with a diploma in Holistic Nutrition at the Culinary Institute of Cagayan de Oro. A big believer that a chef should be in his kitchen and also one for the beach life, he opens his concepts in locations where the call of the shore is the strongest. From his well-established Taco Surf restaurant in the burgeoning Dumaguete, he uprooted himself again for the even more laid-back environment of Basdiot.
The absence of the titular kugita, Visayan for octopus, was quickly parlayed with a welcome of wine, a wonderfully crisp and fruity Mirabeau Pure Provence Rosé. That was ultimately refreshing in the unforgiving summer heat and paired well with his entire menu, as we would later come to find out.
If you order one thing at Kugita, it has to be the Tomahawk Chops
Tomahawk Chops reads out on the menu as a deft play on the colloquial for libations and the meat’s cut. The bone-in pork piece is seared to a medium well, and the reference to a good time comes in a generous dousing of a reduction of the local palm toddy, tubà. The chef insists on a ferment at 11 to 12 days old—mildly intoxicating, still sweet, and right at the cusp of a stronger, more sour taste. Inspired by his hometown’s world-famous Suka Pinakurat, the sauce is a complex flavor of a deliciously mouth-puckering sweet-sourness and a sensuous slow burn of spices to both complement and highlight the meat’s natural taste.
Another bestseller is named in honor of the chef’s kindred spirit in surf and skate, Charlie. This one’s a guy’s guy and as “everyone loves chicken,” a whole dressed piece is first deep-fried to a scrumptious crisp then smothered in a decadent cream sauce. Garlic, ginger, and scallions make an Asian mirepoix for an aromatic and vegetal-sweet layer of flavor in the coconut cream while a swirl of truffle oil further elevates this take on what is otherwise a classic chicken halang-halang.
Keeping his sources very local with a bent for sustainability and supporting the local economy, Bukidnon is an already distant location for his Kitayama Wagyu prime rib.
Chef Jay Garife’s elevated take on chicken halang-halang, Charlie’s Chicken
As spectacular in tenderness, marbling, and flavor as its Japan-side siblings, cutting into a perfect medium rare reveals the gentle graduations from reds through pinks to the browned crust unfolding in flavor variations on the tongue. A house chimichurri pushes all those to the front with its fresh vegetals, and another side dip of the Korean barbecue condiment ssamjang introduces that savory-sweet funk for the inclined.
Of course, the near-beach location and the seafood in its name had to be justified, and their fruits de mer didn’t disappoint. Sea bass is steamed whole to a moist flaky, with the briny sweetness of the fish played up by a flambé in white wine. Black beans and garlic pins down an Asian profile. Meanwhile the whole pompano is fried in a sweet-and-sour treatment, oomph up with a ginger sauce for yet another shakeup to the ubiquitous. If anything, the dishes tread the fine line between familiar and fancy appealing both to aspiration and accessibility.
His background at Tsunami unleashes a tidal wave of flavors in his sushis and makis. Tasty shrimp tempura is torched to a smoky finish to echo that in the eel sauce, and the salty but delicate flavor of the shrimp sauce it is drizzled with in the Tempura Roll. Fish-of-the-day marries cream cheese, and that relationship is spiced up by sriracha then grounded, yet again, by eel sauce, in their signature Kugita Roll.
I’d go on with the rest of the menu items but as there is so much more to discover about the octopus, so is there so much, as I am also unable to fit into my word count, best left to experience and discover for yourself. As to his formula, Chef Jay chalks it up to the time-honored elements of passion, prowess, and produce. Beaming through pearly whites made more brilliant against his enviable permatan, he adds hard work and perseverance in another play on words as adept as his kitchen skills, “Kugi ‘ta (let’s work hard).”
Kugita Seafood & Charcoal Grill is open Fridays to Sundays only from 11 am–2 pm and 5–10 pm at Panagsama Road, Moalboal, Cebu for dine-in, take out, and limited delivery. For reservations and inquiries, contact (032)474-0037.
Photography Chester Baldicantos
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