Negros Oriental, and Dumaguete in particular, punches well above its weight for food. The city's student population and the steady trickle of expats and long-term visitors has produced a restaurant scene that is lively, cheap, and more varied than you might expect from a small provincial capital.
The default is Filipino food: grilled fish, pork adobo, sinigang, kare-kare, rice at every meal. Seafood is the local strength — caught fresh in the strait and sold the same day, it is often the best-value thing on any menu. The evening food stalls along Rizal Boulevard are the essential experience: informal, outdoor, cheap, and sociable.
A handful of proper sit-down restaurants cluster around Silliman University and along the boulevard. Quality is generally honest and prices are low by any standard. There is no neighbourhood for eating out in the way that a larger city would have one — the action is mostly along the waterfront and the streets immediately behind it.