This is the second article in our series for Healthy and Yummy Food Campaign. Our first article, Kitchen for Healthy Cooking in The Fort, can be found here.

In this article, we share with you our research on vegetarian dine-in
places in The Fort. For each dine-in place, we checked the
ingredients listed in their menu. Where possible, we enquire about the
oil they use for cooking the dishes to ensure only vegetable oils are
used, but please do enquire directly with the establishments if you want
to be absolutely sure that a particular dish does not contain offending
ingredients. Sometimes restaurants use beef, pork or chicken stock to
make vegetable dishes tasty. It is therefore not sufficient to just look
at the ingredients when considering whether a dish is suitable for
vegetarians. Our research should be used mainly by people who want to
reduce meat intake, but do not mind having a little meat in a meal. For
strict vegetarians, the choices are very limited, unfortunately.

Restaurants that serve only vegetarian food

SUSI, Forbestown Road, Burgos Circle, BGC

SUSI is a vegan and vegetarian restaurant. Opened less than one year
(last June), it seems to have built up quite a legion of followers. It
is actually the only vegan restaurant in The Fort.
“Vegetarians do not eat meat, fish, or poultry. Vegans, in addition to
being vegetarian, do not use other animal products and by-products such
as eggs, dairy products, honey, leather, fur, silk, wool, cosmetics, and
soaps derived from animal products.” (Source: www.vrg.org)

The restaurant is also gluten free. This means the texture of food is
quite different from what most people are used to. In addition, its
cooking tends to be low salt and minimal seasoning. Only people with
specially trained palate may get the cooking style preferred by this
restaurant.

Restaurants that serve mostly vegetarian food

Chakra Cafe

6/F, 20th Drive Corporate Center, 20th Drive, McKinley Business Park, BGC

It is located inside a wellness center, called the Third Eye. It has a
very limited menu, but most ingredients are good for health, such as
brown rice and quinoa for staple. Only meat served is chicken, which is
served in their chicken salad.


New Bombay Indian Restaurant

Second Floor, Crossroads Building, 32nd Street, BGC

Indian restaurants serve a lot of vegetarian dishes, but mostly in
pureed form, and not in raw, fresh form. New Bombay’s menu is mainly
vegetarian. It is a good choice if you do not mind having cheese in the
dish.

Restaurants that serve many vegetable dishes

Salad Stop!

Ground Floor, Central Square, Bonifacio High Street

It serves salads and sandwiches, and is the only place in the whole of
the Philippines that we have found that shows calorie value of its
dishes. Not all of its salads are vegetarian. Hail Caesar, for example,
has bacon bits. ‘Go Geisha’ and ‘Man-Go Wild’ are salad that appear to
have only vegetables as ingredients.

Earth Kitchen

Building C2, Bonifacio High Street Central

It has meat dishes on its menu, but all of its soups and most of its
salads are made of vegetables only. It also offers three vegetarian
pasta (roasted vegetable linguini, mushroom ravioli, and Earth Kitchen
ravioli). All of its ingredients are locally sourced, and many are grown
organically. It does not serve any carbonated drinks.

Greeka Kouzina 

SM Aura Premier

It is the only Greek restaurant in The Fort. All its dips used for appetizers are vegetarian, such as hummus
which is made with chickpea, roasted garlic and tahini. For main course,
it has vegetable pesto pasta, spinach rice, veggie gyro and many other
vegetable dishes.

Wholesome Table

Building C3, Bonifacio High Street Central

The Wholesome Table has a vegetarian burger, several pizzas that only
use vegetables (Margarita, Puttanesca, the Mediterranean), three
vegetarian pasta dishes (Classic Pesto, Vegetarian Bolognese, Nutty Garlic), and all its rice bowls contain only vegetables and brown rice.

Bar Dolci

Burgos Circle

This is a gelato and macaron place that also sells savory food. It
has at least one vegetarian dish in each of its categories of food.
Three out of their four pasta dishes, for example, are suitable for
vegetarians. It also has Mediterranean salad, vegetarian pizza,
mozzarella and tomato sandwich, and mushroom panini.

Wildflour Cafe + Bakery

26th Street corner 4th Avenue, Bonifacio Global City

This very popular restaurant has many dishes that contain only
vegetables and cheese, which should make the dishes acceptable to some
vegetarians. For appetizers, there is crispy parmesan churros, homemade
carabao ricotta, macaroni and cheese. For salads, it has wild mushroom
salad and Caesar salad. For lunch, the vegetarian dishes are: roasted
vegetable lasagna and sweet corn agnolotti.

Mamou

Serendra Piazza

Mamou is a casual dining place that has quite a few vegetarian
dishes. Its appetizers include palm spring rolls and truffle flavoured
vegetable mushroom dip. At least three out of its four soups use
primarily vegetarian ingredients, but we have not checked the stock used
for the soup. It has a lot of vegetarian salads, such as grilled
vegetable salad, warm couscous salad, and Mamou’s Greens Too. There are
two vegetarian dishes in the main course category, namely, grilled
vegetable stew and vegetarian adobado with pickled ubod.

New take-out place that serves many vegetable dishes

It has been reported that HALAL Guys, a HALAL food cart
started in New York by three Egyptians, will have a take-out counter at
Fully Booked Bookstore at Bonifacio High Street soon. One main dish
offered by HALAL Guys is falafel, fried ball made from grounded
chickpeas and served with chopped vegetables and rice or pita bread,
thus a vegetarian dish. A little tidbit: Why open in Fully Booked, which
is a bookstore? Because the brand is brought to the Philippines by the
owners of Fully Booked Philippines.

It is therefore not difficult to find eat-out places in The Fort if all we want is to reduce meat intake. In fact, there are
probably more restaurants serving organically grown vegetables in The Fort than elsewhere.

Please remember to visit our Healthy Yummy Campaign event at Serendra
Piazza on October 15 to 18, in which you will find even more
information on healthy eating.

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