Davao Inn houses Davao’s best food brands

Rogen Inn exudes an aura of a hotel, but it’s an inn, according to hotel manager Gene Bangayan. PHOTOS BY GERMELINA LACORTE

DAVAO CITY — Sprawled in a corner lot of Mt. Apo and Lopez Jaena streets in this city, Rogen Inn has often been mistaken for a condominium or a hotel since it opened in April this year.

From the design of its three mid-rise seven-story buildings, to its spacious lobby, the function hall at the top floor of its south wing and its wide parking space, it “exudes the air of a hotel, has the size of a hotel and promises the comforts of a hotel,” described Gene Bangayan, Rogen Inn’s manager. “(But) Rogen is not a hotel, it’s an inn,” she said.

Unlike hotels, Rogen doesn’t have a kitchen or an in-house restaurant for guests. Instead, it houses a roster of Davao’s favorite dining places for guests to choose from.

Among these dining places, Marinatuna Seafood, best known in the city for its tuna and seafood dishes, serves free breakfast to hotel guests, the only restaurant within the compound that opens first in the morning and closes last at night.

Bangayan’s son Wesley had acquired the Marinatuna franchise and had partnered with the hotel. He said Marinatuna’s services and offerings at Rogen’s Inn are unique from other branches.

“Food orders are cooked fresh from the kitchen when refilling is required. There would be no advanced cooking,” Wesley told the Inquirer on Monday, Nov. 21.

Other restaurants in the Inn are Vines, which specializes on Thai cuisine; Yo Froz, whose chain of cafes along F. Torres St. is known for its yogurt and other frozen goods; Habi at Kape, for its sikwate and native delicacies; Samgyupsalamat, for its unlimited Korean barbecue and the samgyup; and Boiling Crabs, touted as Davao’s best seafood restaurant.

Barely seven months into its operation, the Inn has increasingly become popular among the locals because of these food brands.

Marinatuna, which opened in September, offers the 10-way tuna, consisting of the 10 bestselling tuna specialties the restaurant has been known for, which include tuna sashimi, tendon sizzling adobo, tuna panga, tuna head with eye paksiw, and tuna kare kare.

The daily breakfast fare comes with eggs, sausages, corned beef, a selection of breads, rice, Filipino kakanins, fresh fruits, and coffee.

But the restaurant is not for seafood lovers alone. It also serves meat and vegetable dishes, with its adobong “kangkong,” becoming a favorite dish among Davao’s most discerning, said Wesley.

The restaurant also serves buffet lunch during weekends, a chance for food lovers to savor a variety of their favorite dishes and feast on one or two of its best sellers at P549 per head. “We’re giving our guests and food lovers in the city another good reason to visit,” Wesley said. “That’s free breakfast for Rogen Inn guests and a weekend lunch buffet at Marinatuna,” Bangayan said.

Rogen’s Inn is just walking distance from malls, hospitals and leisure establishments.

Aside from the food brands, the Inn also hosts Elements Salon, where guests can do some self-pampering, and the Holiday Gym on the top floor of its West Wing.

Wesley said occupancy had significantly improved from only three to five rooms during its opening to as much as 50 per cent of the Inn’s 328 rooms. “Most of the guests we have are locals, he said.

His mother, the hotel manager, said guests would find out for themselves that Rogen’s Inn, which is tourism-accredited, is unconventional and not a traditional hotel.

lzb