Lechon Station Serves Favorites From The Phillipines And More

Marina Shopping Center’s latest eatery, Lechon Station, just opened up in Suisun City last month. Its owner, Giovanni Dy, has more than 15 years experience serving his specialty Cebu-style Philippine dishes to customers.

“This is my first business here in the United States,"said Dy.

Dy, a Philippines native from Cebu province, makes it back home about once a year, he said. He now owns a restaurant both here and in the Philippines. His mother, sister and wife all help out at the restaurant in Suisun City. Family helps him run his restaurant in the Philippines, as well.

“I just go back and forth there over there,”  he said. “Right now my dad is running it over there.”

After being in the United States for eight years, Dy began to search for the best place to plant his new restaurant. At the time, he and his wife were cooking for parties and gathering their friends and family put on. He recalled looking for a good location and reasonable rent, and found a great fit with the Marina Shopping Center. Owners of the center were a great help to get his restaurant started, he said.

“They are nice, the landlord,” he said. “Very supportive, and they helped us to make it happen.”

Of the many things Cebu Island is noteworthy for, one is Cebu City, the oldest city within the Philippines today. The other is their Lechon Baboy. The name means roasted pig, and associates with the cooking of the whole pig.

“If you come to some people from, say, Manila and you introduce yourself and what island you came from their going to say, ‘Oh Lechon! You’re famous for Lechon Baboy.’ Even in the Philippines we’re famous for it.”

Dy makes his lechon baboy on a huge barbeque grill over coals in the back of his restaurant. He custom designed the 16x5 foot grill himself, making a hybrid of the old school hand rotating rotiserries used for years back home. Dy’s grill can roast up to eight pigs at a time, and is currently awaiting a patent, he said.

At the restaurant you can not only find roasted pig but chicken, beef, and, for Thanksgiving, a special on roasted turkeys.

Dy said he does not like using a typical menu of items, but rather makes items by customer request. You can get anywhere from Mongolian beef, to lasagna, to pansit noodles, and more.

“We try to make you satisfied,” he said.