Cebu has no shortage of massive malls — SM, Ayala, Robinsons. They’re bigger than most malls in Japan, lined with fashion stores, sporting goods, homeware, and every kind of specialty shop. You’ll even find Japanese fast-fashion brands, a 100-yen equivalent store (actually 88-peso uniform pricing), eyeglass shops, ramen restaurants. Pretty much everything you need. Of all of them, I tend to gravitate toward SM.

I Saw the Words “Beard Papa”

One day I made my usual trip to J Mall — an SM-affiliated mall. The “J,” I’m fairly sure, stands for Japan. The mall shares a building with a Tokyu Inn hotel, and inside, one entire wall is covered in Japanese-style manga art. Life-size figures of popular anime characters are on display. There’s even a restaurant area called IZAKAYA TERRACE. The Japanese energy is strong.

I happened to glance up through the atrium toward the third floor — and there it was. The Beard Papa logo. I took the escalator up at speed.

No shop, though. Just a section of the floor wrapped in construction hoarding, with a sign that read: Opening March 2025. It was May 2025. Construction running months behind schedule is completely standard in Cebu. Nothing to do but wait.

Four Months Later

From that day in May, checking the third floor every time I visited J Mall became a reflex. June, July — still covered. At some point, the “Opening March 2025” sign quietly disappeared (laughed at that). August — I quietly resolved to just buy cream puffs in Japan during my end-of-year trip home. September — I glanced up as usual, expectations at maybe 10%. Wait. There are people sitting there. Eating something. Eating cream puffs.

It had finally, finally opened.

The Philippine Beard Papa Menu

As you can see, the Philippine version of Beard Papa differs slightly from Japan. First, a clarification: what Japanese people call シュークリーム (shu cream) is called a cream puff in English — keep that in mind as you look at the menu.

Along the left axis, the shell types are listed. Regular size comes in four varieties: Honey, Original, Cookie, and Eclair. Then two Mini sizes, plus a long thin option called Kazekaze. Along the horizontal axis: the cream flavors — Vanilla, Cookies & Cream, and Salted Caramel. That’s 7 shells × 3 creams = 21 combinations. Very Philippine. The enthusiasm for sweetness here knows no bounds.

My order: Original × Vanilla (anchored by my firm belief that original is always best), plus Cookie × Salted Caramel, and Kazekaze × Vanilla — novelty won out in the end. As often happens abroad, the cashier asked for my name. When the order’s ready, they call it out loudly across the shop.

One thing I’ve come to appreciate about the Philippines: the service style here is unapologetically staff-first. At supermarket checkouts, at food stalls, waiting is simply part of the experience. In Japan, both customers and staff would feel quietly mortified if a long queue formed — there’s a social pressure to keep things moving. Filipinos don’t carry that weight at all. I often think that if you averaged Japan and the Philippines, you’d land somewhere exactly right.

I sat down, waited unhurriedly, eventually heard my name called, and collected my long-awaited cream puffs. I got them to go and headed home.

Finally: Beard Papa

Back home, I made myself hold off. A moment like this deserves proper coffee. I brewed a careful cup — no cutting corners here.

Done. I arranged everything on the table.

The Original needs no explanation. The crisp shell, the lightly sweetened vanilla cream — exactly right. The other two had more texture to the pastry, a satisfying crunch-and-crumble. All three were genuinely hard to rank. Caught in the pleasant loop of sweetness and coffee bitterness, I found myself already wondering which combination to try next.