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JCA Pizzaria: Cebu’s *Best Cost* Pizza
How an Assortment of Seemingly Inappropriate Food can make Great Tasting Pizza!
By philobean | July 25, 2007
Way back when I was in grade school, my cousin Robert (much older than me and my brothers) would take us to JCA for a bite of pizza. Back then, we considered Pizza Hut and Shakey’s high-end. Well, JCA only had a few items on its menu. It’s specialty: <i>Magic pizza</i>.
The Cebu market is all about best cost. You can’t sell a pencil on the island without a convincing, sufficiently detailed, independently verifiable ten-step argument ready for the *kuripot* Cebuano. Well, JCA’s always been all about best cost. While, today, the pizzaria’s menu’s diversified a bit since the late 1990s, their prices are still significantly lower than its competitors. Magic, if I remember correctly, used to sell for a little over 50php (now selling for 120php). The pizzaria’s other (more mainstream) pizzas cost up to 160php, no where near Shakey’s Pizza Hut’s 300-400 range.
Oddly though, the Magic pizza (still claimed as JCA’s one-and-only specialty) costs much less than many of the others in the pizzaria’s now longer menu. Why? Well, (while I highly advise you have a taste of the pizza first before reading this) the Magic pizza’s ingredients is, as it has always been, a mixture of oddities: quickmelt cheese (instead of your regular mozzerella), sliced hotdogs (instead of pepperoni), a generous topping of sliced onions and bell pepper, and something that I swear resembles luncheon meat (this assertion has been contested, however). I had one before reading the menu. My next serving looked much less appetizing than my first. I had a few slices of the others (not quite satisfied) before taking a another swing at the Magic. It was much better.
JCA offers good quality pizza (comes with OK ambiance) for less than half the price at other stores. Its Magic pizza costs 25% less than many of the other offerings on the menu, but it tastes much better (albeit doesn’t look the part).
JCA, best cost, a truly Cebuano tradition.