Cabalen

Cabalen
Private
Industry Restaurant
Founded 1986 (1986) in Quezon City, Philippines
Founders Maritel Nievera
Headquarters Quezon City, Philippines
Number of locations
 18 (17 local, 1 overseas)
Area served
Key people
 Maritel Nievera (President)
Products Philippine cuisine
Asian cuisine
Website www.cabalen.ph

Cabalen is a Philippine buffet restaurant chain primarily serving traditional Filipino entrees heavy on influences from the Pampanga region of Central Luzon. Most of the restaurants are located in Metro Manila with one restaurant located on Cebu and single international unit in the United States. Some of the locations are franchised operations. Many locations are situated within shopping malls.

History

Cabalen, which literally translates to "a fellow Kapampangan", is a group of casual - fine dining restaurants known for authentic Kapampangan dishes and different Filipino specialties, originating from Pampanga. These factors contributed to the eventual birth of Cabalen, the Kapampangan specialty restaurants.

Cabalen family started in 1974 in San Fernando, Pampanga as a small Bahay Pasalubong Restaurant selling specialty food dishes, then grew into a restaurant called "Ituro Mo, Iluto Ko". In 1986, the first Cabalen Eat-all-you-Can, Eat-all-you-Want Restaurant was opened on West Avenue in Quezon City[1] that led to the expansion to more outlets.[2]

The first location outside of Luzon was open in Cebu City on the island of Cebu in August 2009. This location also serves local Ceban dishes.[3]

In September 2010, Cabalen began to offer the Asian Buffet in addition to the Filipino Buffet at their three largest locations in the shopping malls at Glorietta, TriNoma, and SM Mall of Asia, all located in Metro Manila.[4]

A few famous customers include Gloria M. Arroyo,[5] Joseph Estrada,[5] Panfilo Lacson,[5] Sharon Cuneta,[5] Imelda Marcos, Kris Aquino,[5] Raul Roco,[5] Boots Anson-Roa,[5] Claudine Barretto,[5] and Butz Aquino.[5]

Menu

Typical dishes include bopiz (kidney), Gatang Kohol (snails in coconut milk), Ensalata Ampalaya (a bitter gourd with garlic and ginger), and laing (a root vegetable in coconut milk. There’s also choices of pork, beef, and fish stews, as well as Chinese influenced fried lumpia, pinakbet (noodles), and adobo (traditional barbeque). Finish off with some local ice cream or one of the rice-based puddings (yam, corn, or plain milk), or the fried banana. A hallmark of their buffet offerings includes their version of kare kare, which foregoes oxtail in favor of beef cheeks. Other common favorites are their fried chicken, palabok, and their weekend lechon specialties.[6] Cabalen is also know for offering such exotic delicacies as betuteng tugak (stuffed frog), kamaru (crickets), adobong pugo (quail) and balut (developing bird embryo).[7][8]

Fourteen of the smaller locations only offer the Filipino Buffet which may include crispy pata, kare kare, bringhe, bulalo soup, ginataang kuhol, tapang kalabaw, and longganisang kapampangan. The three largest locations offer the Filipino-Asian Buffet which includes everything on the Filipino Buffet plus additional foods from other asian cusines, such as sushi, vegetable tempuras, siomai, Thai catfish flakes with green mango salad or Yam Pla Duk Fu.[9] The overseas location may offer a slightly modified menu to cater to American tastes.

The buffet usually consists of dishes ranging from Filipino, Thai, and even Japanese cuisines. However, most of the meals are from Kapampangan cuisine.

Cabalen has also catered to many official functions in locations such as the Malacañang Palace.[10]

Branch locations

Cabalen has a total of 17 branches in the Philippines and 1 branch internationally, in the United States. It is not so commonly known that there are two types of Cabalen restaurants, the All-Filipino Buffet (which has 15 locations) and the Asian Buffet (which has 3 locations).

In May 2013, the first and only overseas location was opened in San Bruno, California, in the United States.[11]

See also

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 12/4/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.