Can you live without meat? Eating Green at Pipino Restaurant

I cannot live without rice. Even if I eat lots of pasta or bread, I would still crave for this Filipino staple. Nothing beats the stomach-filling effect of rice. It's just beyond compare to other carbs. It's definite - me and rice, we are MFEO (meant for each other :).

But there is one food question that I am bound to find out. Can I live without meat?

Some can. And they are called vegans or vegetarians.

We visited this plant-based restaurant in Jupiter Street in Makati called Pipino Restaurant and sampled a 12-course meal especially designed for our group. The restaurant caters to vegetarians but does not call itself a vegetarian restaurant.  

This creative blackboard poster only claims that Pipino is plant-based.



Pipino Restaurant shares place with its sister Pino Resto & Bar.

Pino Resto & Bar has two branches - the first is in 39 Malingap Street, Teachers Village

Quezon City and the other is in #38 Jupiter Street, Makati City.

According to Alessa (one of the owner who is the actual vegetarian), since Pino serves meat and Pipino customers are served in the same area, they cannot actually claim that it is a vegetarian restaurant. Although, she said that the preparation area and the china and utensils being used for Pipino are segregated from Pino. (Hmmm, sounds Halal-ish to me.) 

Pipino, in the right, is separated by the white divider from Pino but customers who order meat-based food are free to share table with their vegetarian companions and vice versa.

But before the gustatory tour to the world of no-meat, here's a short recap of Vegetarianism/Veganism 101 by Ms. Alessa Lanot:

Alessa Lanot is a renowned blogger and crafts teacher. Check her at www.lifeafterbreakfast.com.

Vegetarian vs Vegan : Vegans are the ultimate no-meat eater. They do not eat meat of any kind nor their by-products which include egg, dairy products, honey which were produced from bees and fish sauce which are fermented fish. Vegetarians, on the other hand, do not eat meat but can eat animal by-products. Some eat eggs (ovo vegetarian) and dairy (lacto vegetarians). There are some who eat only white meat and call themselves semi-vegetarians.

Why go vegetarian or vegan? : Three reasons - health, animal rights, environment. Alessa went vegetarian since high school for the health and environmental reasons.

Why vegetarian is healthy? : Our body needs a balance of alkalinity and acidity. But over the two, it prefers alkaline. Vegetables and fruits are alkaline while meats and a host of other stuffs deemed unhealthy such as alcohol and sugars (and coffee) are acidic. Acids also feed the unhealthy cancer cells. Acidic foods expand when we ingest them while alkaline foods constrict.  This is manifested in how we feel bloated after eating that steak while we just feel full after grazing on that vegetable salad.

Why vegetarian is good for the environment? : Livestock production is a major contributor to greenhouse gases emission (particularly methane). For the same carbon footprint, feeding one meat-eater is equivalent to feeding 14 vegetarians. The government now has a Luntiang Lunes program that encourages Filipinos to eat no meat on Mondays. Alessa said that if Filipinos will follow this, one day of no meat for Filipinos has an equal effect of planting 150,00 trees for the environment. Whoa!!!

So much for that lecture. Let's go to the meat of this blog, este, to the core of this blog - the FFFOOODDDD!!!

This 12-course vegetarian meal is prepared by the very light-spirited and comic Chef Edward Bugia. 

Chef Edward preparing the Quinoa Berry Salad

We started off with these cutesy appetizers:

Amuse Bouche. Lychee Ginger Tea with Microarugula and Watermelon with Balsamic Reduction. 

The lychee is intensely gingery in taste but the nutty, bitterish note of arugula gave it an interesting twist. The brown, caramelized note of the reduced (boiled at low heat) balsamic vinegar balanced the sweetness of the watermelon. This gave me an idea on how to give a new twist to familiar fruits. 

Truffled Popcorn with agave, truffle oil and candied walnuts

There is so much hype over this very rare and expensive mushroom called truffle. It gives off a mild mushroom taste that has a bit of earthy and smoky/roasted notes that makes the popcorn a little more of a snob :P. For the walnuts, they used agave instead of refined sugar.

Sunny Side Up. Coconut Cream Curry served with Carrot Bacon.

Chef Edward is very inventive on this one. For the egg white, he used coconut cream with gelatin and for the yolk, he used curry sauce as substitute. Don't be fooled by the bacon. Those are just thinly sliced carrots that were overfried to simulate the bacon curl. Very clever.

Maki Plate. Japanese-style Rolled Rice with Pickled Eggplants, Seasoned Asparagus and Sundried Tomatoes.

Rice is quite sticky. I barely tasted the tomato. This one is not spectacular. 

Quinoa Berry Salad

This one is hard to replicate in your own kitchen. It is a smorgasbord of eetsy-teeny-weeny veggies and fruits - quinoa, micro arugula, strawberries, blueberries, alfalfa served with beet sauce and raspberry coulis. Quinoa is an interesting food. It has this boiled young corn taste but the texture is more intriguing. They say that quinoa is a complete protein and so, is a good replacer of meat proteins for vegetarians. The mix of flavors - bland, nutty, sweet, sour, bitterish with a pinch of salt and a dash of pepper makes this last of the appetizers definitely not the least, but the berry best. :p

Graniya. Calamansi and Lemon Sorbet.

To rinse the palate, this calamansi and lemon sorbet did its work. Good blend except that sugar can still be toned down a little.


Now here comes the main dishes....

Gnocchi. Sweet potato gnocchi with arugula, mushroom and sundried tomatoes.

This is quite a serving and heavy in the stomach. Chef used sweet potato which is healthier than potato. The taste blends well with the sundried tomato, basil and cherry tomato.

Vegan Tantan Ramen. Buckwheat noodle ramen with enoki mushroom, coconut cream curry egg and bokchoy.

Pipino can give the proliferating ramen houses a run for their money. The normal tantan (nutty, spicy) ramen is made more delectable and rich with coconut cream. Where is it coming from? No other than the white egg which is made from .... tadaaa... coconut cream, which melts with the soup after some time. Really inventive Chef! (slow clap with slow moving of head sideways, can even have a slow motion standing up :p)

Mini Watermelon Steak. Grilled watermelon with vegan aioli, string beans, pickled mushroom.

Who would have thought that watermelon can replace a steak? No one! Precisely because nothing can match a steak except for another steak (spell: beef, pork). But this dish is very ingenious. The fruit mimics the  color of the meat and it actually has a desirable grilled note owing to the sugar that caramelized in the process of cooking. Chef said that its discovery (watermelon can be grilled) is accidental. The side dishes are good complements.

Pinakbet Risotto Balls. Deconstructed pakbet with squash risotto balls and vegan bagoong.

I was doubtful of the bagoong at first. How can you make bagoong without shrimp? Well, Chef has black beans and the ever reliable coconut cream, which made a very yummy tandem. Of course, it doesn't taste like bagoong, but it certainly did its job - makes me do the slow clap again. :p


And lastly, the desserts...

Taho Ice Cream. Soybean curd ice cream with  tapioca syrup. 

At this point, I am so full that I do not remember tasting this. Joke. At least, not as vivid as the other dishes. It probably tasted like taho but probably good too because now I remember that I ate all of my serving. 

Choco Sphere. Dark chocolate sphere filled with vegan chocolate mousse.

This dessert caps off our exploration to the world of vegetarian food. Pretty firmly though. Hehe. Because the dark cocoa sphere is very hard, we cannot break it. We have to turn it upside down so we can taste the chocolate mousse made of silken tofu inside. The mousse tastes good but the texture is quite tough for a mousse. Well, there is always a price to pay for going healthy. Luckily for this one, it's only the texture. The use of flowers made this a feast for the eye. Not bad to end our vegetarian feast. 

This is how we all looked like after.

WE TURNED GREEN!!! Hahaha :P

We were all full but did not feel bloated. Hmm, seems like Alessa was right after all... :)

So, after all had been said, shall I now answer the question - can I live without meat?



The answer is NO!!! For now, at least. Or probably, not yet. (Mahirap magsalita ng tapos. hehehe.) 



But I would gladly adopt the aspirations of vegetarians. To remain healthy, I will go for the balance thing (alkaline + acidic) - mixed diet of more veggies & fruits and less meat. And to help the environment, I will continue raising my own vegetables and reduce/recycle/reuse my waste and infecting people to do the same. I hope I did a little of that through this blog. 

Note:

All the dish presented are not available at Pipino Restaurant. This is not the usual I-went-to-Pipino-and-I-think-I-need-to-blog-about-it blog but more of a blog to create vegetarianism awareness and showcase efforts (like Pipino's, Chef Ed's and Alessa's) to make this lifestyle more attractive and engaging to more people.