Sugbo Mercado is one of the most visited spots in Cebu IT (Information Technology) Park since it serves various types of cuisines and dishes, drinks and many more. It is a food market wherein it only opens during Wednesdays until Sundays and is located near Pipeline IT Park across the Avida Tower.
A lot of people will flock on this certain food market to satisfy their tastebuds and delve into a remarkable dining experience with friends, families or even alone with themselves.
However, here are the pros and cons I can share based on my firsthand experience in the place.
Let us begin with the PROS:
1. There are varieties of mouthwatering foods to choose from.
Indeed, it provides various types of delicious foods from Japanese cuisines to Korean street foods to local Filipino foods to different flavors of coffee and fruit shakes and juices. There are also some food stalls that offer grilled pork and bangus (a milkfish that is popular in the Philippines), grilled seafoods and much more. Just by looking at the foods displayed on different stalls would already quench your hunger and thirst. If only our stomach wouldn't get upset when eating them all, we can really eat them all and everything on the menu is a 'must try'.
2. A local band plays while everybody is busy eating their foods.
A local band plays every night on their designated area. How relaxing it is, right? You get to savor the foods and drinks you ordered while listening to your favorite songs and jam with the band's vocalists and sometimes, you get the chance to sing along with them or have a chance to sing in front if you wish to.
3. The prices for each food are reasonable enough.
Although the place is located in the middle of an IT Park, their prices are reasonable and you get to enjoy your food without having to worry about emptying your pocket. When I went there, I was with a friend and for just five hundred pesos, we were able to eat dinner and sip our favorite cucumber drink.
Now let us proceed with the CONS:
(NOTE: These are just based on my personal experiences and I believe each one of us have different impressions about the place so yea, let me spill what's on my mind.)
1. The place is too crowded.
For a fact that it is a Sugbo Mercado which provides a myriad of different cuisine and it only happens to open on Wednesdays to Sundays, people will literally converge into the place to experience dining in and tasting the most flavorful of foods.
It is expected that people will flock the place and anywhere you go, there are people chatting, laughing, eating and others having their merrymaking while enjoying the food. It is like Myeongdong in Korea but a narrower version of it. Hopefully it would be wider soon to accommodate more people.
2. You cannot wear stilettos.
I am not a stiletto-type of a girl but if you are a stiletto-type of a lady, you can go back to where you came from and get some sneakers or flat sandals because in this place, you cannot wear stilettos. Anyway, kidding aside, what I meant about 'You cannot wear stiletto' thing is that when you get inside the streetfood market, you have to step into some pebbles all throughout the place. Mind you, there is no un-pebbled surface in the area.
I know this does not reasonably belong to the cons section but it may probably be a con for some. Just reminding everyone who loves to wear high heeled shoes and wants to experience the place to please not wear high heeled shoes.
3. It would take so much time for you to find a place to sit and eat.
Since the place is too crowded, finding a place to sit and eat would be a hard time because most of the tables are already occupied. Based on my experience when we got there, it took us approximately six minutes to eat our food since we still had to wander around to find a place while bringing our food (we ordered grilled bangus, shrimp and cucumber drink at that time). Good thing some girls were kind enough to let us share the table with them.
Those were just some of the cons I have observed while having my dining experience in Sugbo Mercado which are just bearable and manageable since the foods are perfection enough if you are that type of a person who loves to venture into variety of delicious cuisines at reasonable prices.
Personally, my dining experience at Sugbo Mercado is one of the best and I would dedinitely come back for more. (My mouth waters while thinking about the grilled bangus with lots of tomatoes on top of it and the grilled shrimp which is one of my favorites.)
I missed this place when I recently went to Cebu. I was in IT Park for a week but haven't had the chance to dine in here.
I agree with you on these Pros and Cons. A friend wanted to dine in here when we met but since we're planning to stay longer and catch up, we thought we should just go somewhere else. Sugbo Mercado is nice and has a wide variety of food but sadly, only few places to sit on with a group, and can't really stay long. It's also kinda not appropriate for catching up because of the crowd's noise and the sound from the band.
If you're only here to dine and dash, probably this is a good place.
So true @wittyzell hehe however the place is still good and the food... They're amazing.
Wow! It's a good thing you've shared it here. One of these days, probably we'll be going there. However, a place to sit in would be a problem if I'll bring my children with me.
I bet your children would enjoy it here. You just need to look for a place to sit in first and have some of your companion sit and wait there before ordering your food so that can have somewhere to eat when the food is served.