A Sparkling Start: Leave room for Kaban

KABAN celebrated its grand opening with a festive evening at Station 0, as fireworks filled the sky with bursts of color. Here’s to a sparkling start and more celebrations to come!Everyone I know has been to Boracay. Most of them more than once.

I hadn’t. Not yet.

Ask around and you get the same greatest hits. White Beach at noon, the sand too bright to look at straight. A sunset that demands a photo. A night that ran later than planned.

What nobody mentioned is the boat. You need one from Caticlan, and the island is a lot smaller than I’d pictured. Apparently, you stop bringing that up after your fifth trip.

Kevin Wong knows the routine. Mention the Philippines to a traveler, he says, and before you’ve finished the sentence they tell you: I’ve been to Boracay.

Fair enough. Plenty of them go back, too. That return trip is where Kaban makes its case.

The night before the grand opening, I sat across from Wong at dinner with my phone recording between the plates. Then he said the one thing I didn’t expect a resort CEO to say.

Kaban doesn’t have its own beach.

He didn’t seem bothered. Without the beach, he said, everything else has to work harder.

Wong is president and CEO of Kaban Boracay, which held its grand opening on October 11 at Station 0, on the northern end of the island. It’s six storeys, with 88 rooms, seven dining concepts, a spa, a pool, a gym, and a stage. There’s a PAGCOR-licensed casino as well, which Wong called “just one part of that experience” in a statement for the opening. I’ll take his word for it. Most of my time there involved a fork.

KABAN president and CEO, Kevin Wong with lovely wife, ShirleyBig resorts are often designed to make leaving unnecessary. Wong’s pitch runs the other way. Go out. Swim. Take the boat. Burn your shoulders. Stay for sunset.

Then come back for dinner.

The beach isn’t far. I spent one night at a beach club in Station 2, and the live singers on the walk over were good enough to slow us down. Coming back to Station 0 afterward felt like switching islands. It’s calmer up there and has no interest in competing with what’s happening farther down the beach. That suited me fine.

Kaban’s best argument is the food.

Seven dining concepts are planned across the property. I managed two. That felt respectable until I saw the full list.

Lamii All-Day Dining. Lamii does modern Filipino food and borrows freely from everywhere else. Hotel buffets have a type: chafing dishes, a station labeled “international,” food designed not to upset anybody. I walked into dinner expecting exactly that.

That lasted until the grill.

Fresh tuna, salmon and crab, cooked while you wait. Sugpo swimming in garlic butter. Porchetta beside cochinillo. Bagnet kare-kare, in case two kinds of crispy pork weren’t enough. They weren’t.

The lighter dishes held up too. The kinilaw na tuna came with watermelon, sharp and sweet in the same bite, while the Thai shrimp had fresh pomelo running through it. There was roast ribeye for anyone who forgot they were on an island, then sushi, then gelato. By my third plate, I had stopped pretending to pace myself.

Breakfast was just as generous. For families, that range matters more than any one dish. Your most adventurous eater and the kid who only wants rice and egg can sit at the same table, and nobody sulks.

The team says the kitchen was built for exactly this, with serious equipment and a proper back-of-house rather than a setup designed simply to feed hotel guests. It worked on me. I’d come back to Lamii even if I weren’t staying at Kaban.

The Sky Bar. On opening night, Chef Gino Lebardo sent out a Filipino-inspired menu, course after course, while Nicole Asensio sang jazz. Dessert is usually a polite afterthought. Here it was the headline: a suman mango cheesecake that turned a classic merienda pairing into the best course of the night.

Guests were captivated by Nicole Asensio’s jazz renditions

The lettuce. This is the part of dinner I keep telling people about. Leafy greens are among the hardest things to source on the island, Wong told me. They come all the way from Baguio, which is a long commute for lettuce. The team is now looking at land near Caticlan so they can grow their own.

No one has ever pitched me on lettuce before. It was the least glamorous thing anyone said to me all weekend, and it’s part of why I trust the kitchen.

Coming soon. Chung Dam Korean Casual Dining and Umi Matsu Japanese Restaurant, both established names, are expected to open around the holidays. A sports bar and lobby café round out the mix. Once everything is running, you could eat your way through several days without leaving the building.

The pool is huge. It curves along the length of the building, lit around the edges so the water glows at night. Palms rise from planters along the sides, while navy umbrellas and loungers line the deck.

Past the glass railing, there’s little but a green hillside. I saw the pool from above after dark, blue water against black trees, and it’s still the picture in my head when someone asks how the trip went.

Parents get the loungers, kids get the water, and nobody has to fight over the one shaded corner. The team also plans to throw pool parties there, foam included.

The room I toured had a padded navy wall behind the bed, a floating wood desk and an oval mirror, lit around the rim, hanging from the ceiling. One wall carries a loud, colorful painting, while the rug swirls orange and gold. Whoever designed it wasn’t afraid of color. I liked that.

The bathroom stocks Acca Kappa’s White Moss line in full-size pump bottles on a terrazzo counter. Shampoo, conditioner, body wash, lotion, and hand wash are all there. No tiny bottles, and no rationing your conditioner by day three.

Wong has three kids, and you can tell from the floor plan. The rooms are bigger than many on the island, he says, and most suites connect. There are family suites too. You never think about connecting doors until there’s a child on the other side of one.

His own kids haven’t stayed yet. He says they’re next, and I suspect they’ll be the toughest reviewers he gets.

A kids’ area is also in the works, with a play park and climbing wall. It isn’t built yet, but the team walked us through the plans in enough detail that I was ready to sign up for the wall myself.

A family day here doesn’t require much engineering. Breakfast downstairs. The beach or a boat until someone gets cranky. Pool in the afternoon. Dinner back at the hotel. Nobody has to rally the troops for one more e-trike.

Sigla is Filipino for vigor, and its spa menu covers island-inspired massages and treatments. I only had time for the tour, but it was enough. It’s spacious, calm and the first thing I’m booking next time.

It also suits another kind of Boracay trip: the one you take after a few months that took more out of you than you’d like to admit. You want proper sleep, good food and nobody asking anything of you. So you skip the bar crawl, book the massage, and go to bed early.

Nobody back home needs to know.

Jessica Sanchez, winner of America’s Got Talent Season 20, headlined opening night. Midway through, she sang “Beautiful Things,” the Benson Boone cover that earned her a Golden Buzzer during her audition. That was the performance that made me a fan in the first place. Hearing it live at Station 0 was the best surprise of the night.

Jessica Sanchez’s incredible performance at Kaban’s Grand OpeningThen the fireworks went off. There had been jazz at dinner and there were DJs after Jessica, so the night stretched on. It won’t be a one-off, either. The team plans to bring in international talent once a month.

Kaban doesn’t have to be where your Boracay trip starts. Leave room for it anyway.

Everyone I know has been to Boracay. Now I have too. Next time, I’ll know about the boat.

Where: Station 0, Boracay Highway, Barangay Yapak, Malay, Aklan

From Caticlan Airport: E-trike or van to Caticlan Jetty Port (5 to 10 minutes), boat to Cagban Jetty Port (15 minutes), then e-trike or van north to Station 0 (20 to 25 minutes).

From Kalibo Airport: Van, bus or private transfer to Caticlan Jetty Port (1.5 to 2 hours), then the same boat and e-trike route.

Rooms: 88 rooms, from boutique rooms to a presidential suite, including family suites. Most suites connect.

Where to eat: Lamii All-Day Dining for breakfast and the dinner buffet, reservations at (0951) 320 1513. The Sky Bar for dinner and drinks. Kaban Sports Bar and the lobby café for something casual. Chung Dam and Umi Matsu open around the holidays.

Also on site: The pool, Sigla spa, a gym and a stage. A kids’ area is on the way.

Casino: PAGCOR-licensed, for adults who want it.