Doro: A new place for your lechon and chicken cravings

With so many restaurants on island offering Filipino food, there’s one area where you really have to be above everyone else: taste. And that’s where the new place in town called “Doro” promises to excel.

Asked about the challenge of opening up with so many competitors, Doro owner Jun Olita said, “The food being offered are the same. You just have to be different with how they taste.”

His wife, Michelle, said the idea for a small barbecue place and restaurant started with their regular family gatherings.

“Whenever we have gatherings, we’d buy roasted chickens but our families and friends got used to the taste already and wanted something different. So we thought of doing our own,” Michelle said.

“We would accept orders from friends for free just so they could taste our cooking until someone told us, ‘Why don’t you open up your own place?’ So we did,” she added.

Michelle said their recipes came from their family, while the name “Doro” was inspired by her husband’s late father.

“His dad really liked roasted pig [and] roasted chicken,” Michelle said.

Specialties

Doro’s specialties are their “deep fried chicken barbecue” and their very own lechon (roasted pig).

At first glance, the chicken seemed like it is roasted but there is actually a difference in the way they cook it.

According to Michelle, the whole chicken is baked and then deep-fried and basted with barbecue sauce. The result? A delicious, well-cooked chicken with a hint of sweetness and, most importantly, crispy skin—unlike the usual roasted chicken where the skin turns out soft and soggy.

Doro’s roasted pig—available on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays—was freshly delivered when I visited their place. As soon as Jun chopped off a part, the mouth-watering smell of lechon wafted through the air. The seasonings and herbs were not overpowering, save for the trace of the fragrant lemongrass used as stuffing.

Bountiful menu

Aside from these specialties, Doro offers a bountiful menu of pork and chicken barbecues, crispy pata, baby back ribs, lechon kawali, pork and lechon sisig, beef pares, and pork chop.

They also have conveniently packed rice toppings such as tinapa rice, Chamorro sausage rice, bagoong rice, pork crispy fritters rice, longanisa rice, talangka rice, veggie rice, tapa rice, liempo rice, adobo rice, pork chop rice, lechon rice, and siomai garlic rice.

Doro also offers merienda (snack) items and desserts.

According to Michelle, they just started operating on July 8 and have managed to sell everything by the end of each day. And despite the network outage experienced during their soft opening, they were able to deliver their orders.

Doro will also have special promo on Fridays that is more of a challenge. They promise not to charge for a huge bowl of goto or lomi if the customer gets to finish the whole thing in one sitting and without any help. If not, the customer will have to pay $20 for it.

According to the owners, Doro caters more to customers who want to pick up their food and go as well as those who want them delivered. But the place also has a couple of chairs and tables for any guests who want to dine in.

Doro, located on Middle Road across the Mobil gas station in Garapan, is open from 10am to 11pm every day. For inquiries, call 233-3676.