Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Vegetarian Food Trip

According to Lonely Planet's latest travel guide for the Philippines, vegetarians will have a hard time in "meat-mad Philippines". I've found that to be generally true. There are some places though where one can find vegetarian food. One such place is Greens, where I had lunch with Bill and his friend Gina Dizon:
Located on Scout Castor Road in Quezon City, Green's is a vegetarian restaurant that has all the typical Filipino dishes. Instead of using meat, however, they use meat-substitutes. For instance, I ordered their sisig dish which was made from tofu, I believe:
It was actually pretty good. Meanwhile, Bill ordered this appetizer of chicharon made from wheat:
Overall, the food at this restaurant was pretty good. I might try it again if I'm ever back in QC.

Another restaurant I tried was Ziggurat located on Makati Ave in Makati. Ziggurat isn't strictly vegetarian but they do have some vegetarian dishes. I figured I oughta check this place out since Lonely Planet recommended it. Another reason to check it out? It was right next to the place where I was staying. hehe. Ziggurat serves Middle Eastern, African, Mediterranean and Indian food. Although they have an impressive looking menu with a big selection, not all the dishes listed are necessarily available. For instance, I was going to try the vegetarian moussaka but all they had was the regular moussaka which had beef. Since I've never had moussaka before, I figured I'd give it a try. The dish wasn't bad. The place also had vegetarian shawarma which was ok. The onions were a bit too raw for me.

Overall, the food at Ziggurat was just ok. The location leaves much to be desired especially with a laundromat located nearby that seemed to be spilling some of its water onto the street creating a not-so-aromatic scent. One dish I probably won't try again is their Vegetarian Gluten Curry. My stomach didnt' agree with it shortly after I ate it. I decided to drink green tea to calm my stomach and it seemed to do the trick. Not sure if it was the tea that calmed my stomach, but I wanted to drink a mango shake and I'm sure that the tea was a better option in this case. hehe

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