A NEW restaurant serving several traditional Filipino dishes without "stiff" competencies opened October 26 at the SM City shopping mall.

The said restaurant aims to give Ilonggos a taste of native dishes but with different flavor.

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Café Laguna opened with food taste for members of the local media with a touch of showbiz glamour by the presence of Ilonggo singer Jed Madela and his family who were longtime customers of the restaurant in Cebu City.

Founder Julita Urbina, who is also the Chief Executive Office of the food corporation, said she and her husband are both natives of the province of Laguna but settled in Cebu in the late 1980s.

Starting small restaurant in 1991 at Veterans Drive in Lahug, Cebu, the restaurant is a labor of love for the whole Urbina family.

It is a family corporation that focuses on dishes served in purely family style.

And why not? Daughter U. Viado is the director on franchising and operation while brother Raki is the chief company chef that plans and cooks the daily well-loved Filipino dishes that cater to the Ilonggo palate. The mother serves as an inspiration to the staff and trains them in motherly fashion.

Mrs. Urbina served Filipino food with the distinctive taste incomparable to this day. Foods are not only tasting good, delicious and nutritious but also brought memories of homecooked meals with friends and family.

Café Laguna has now two branches at the Terraces of Ayala Center-Cebu, another outlet at the Northwing SM City-Cebu and a franchise outlet at Robinsons Mall, Limketkai Center in Cagayan de Oro City.

Aside from the chain of Filipino restaurants and the catering service, the Laguna Group also operates a Thai-Vietnamese restaurant called Lemon Grass at the Terraces of Ayala Center-Cebu.

Top Filipino foods at the Iloilo branch are Kare-kare with a distinctive taste and fresh lumpia that will surely catch the finicky Ilonggo taste buds.