Not just salad: Vegan options in restos south of the metro

Meat & Brew Co. —CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS

It can be tricky for vegans to find something to eat at conventional restaurants, especially in meat-centric Metro Manila. That’s why I maintain a list of places I can readily furnish to friends who want to meet for a meal. This is not a definitive list, but it’s helped refine answers to “Sa’n tayo kakain?” where vegans and nonvegans can “peacefully coexist” (the irony: only vegans will get it).

Here’s where you can find vegan options:

Alabang Town Center: Auntie Anne’s, Bombers Tex Mex, Burger King, Chili’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, Gloria Maris, Kiwami, Mongolian Stop, Pho Hoa, Pinkberry, Potato Corner, Salad Stop, Sbarro, Serenitea, Shi Lin, Silantro, TGIF, Wee Nam Kee

Alabang West Parade: Ipponyari, Mama Lou’s

BF: Drive-By Taco Shop, Heaven on Earth, La Chinesca/Sensei, Masa, Serenitea, Sweet Ecstasy, Thai Mango

Festival Mall: Burger King, Dunkin’ Donuts, Kenny Rogers, Pho Hoa/My Thai, The Morning After, The Kind Cafe

Molito Lifestyle Center: Barcino’s, Cafe Med, Cupcakes by Sonja, Just Thai, Mantra, Mendokoro, Nara, Nonie’s, Olive Tree, Potato Corner, Souv, Miyazaki

Westgate: Bean & Yolk, Kickstand, Southbank, Tipsy Pig

But what if you want to avoid typical restaurant strips? Here are even more vegan options available in nonmall locations south of the metro:

IMC Kavino. Hong Kong-trained international master chef Kavino Lau was the executive chef at Heritage Hotel Manila before he opened IMC Kavino, a fusion Chinese restaurant on Jupiter Street in Makati. From there, Lau has since settled IMC Kavino at a smaller location in Parañaque.

I love how he has a full vegetarian menu that can be veganized. He effortlessly embraces frozen Taiwanese mock meats and shows how he can work his magic on them like he prepares his traditional fare.

My children especially love the three-cup sizzling tofu, roti, veggie curry fried rice, and smoked vegan chick’un lollipops. I also liked the vegan lemon chick’un, which had lemon wedges, a delicious sauce, and pineapple chunks. The Veggie a la Beijing is their version of Peking duck wraps using tao pao (tofu skin) with julienned veggies and hoisin sauce, prepared on a cart beside your table.

They only offer soda and powdered iced tea. But everything was delicious, including the complimentary barbecue-flavored crispy fried wontons and house tea.

Vegan smoked chick’un lollipops at IMC Kavino

IMC Kavino is at 8183 Sucat, Parañaque; tel. 0966-2111068.

Meat & Brew Co. There’s no way there would be something vegan-friendly in a steakhouse/bistro/deli/lounge, unless the chef used to handle vegan requests at the restaurant he worked at in the United States.

Chef Ryan Rey Lastra can veganize items on his menu such as soup and grilled Caesar salad. Upon request for something more filling, he served a pasta dish that wasn’t aglio olio but was ridiculously flavorful.

The place is decked out in decidedly masculine fashion, popular with coffee aficionados, liquor enthusiasts, bikers, and jiujiteros (he also teaches Brazilian jiu-jitsu at the gym upstairs). It would be great if he could roll out a vegan menu, too, to round out his offerings.

Meat & Brew Co. is at Blk. 1 Lot 1 St. Benedict Commercial Strip, South Forbes Golf City, Silang, Cavite; tel. 0917-6303262.

Ramyeon Bar. At Ramyeon Bar, you can choose from over 100 ramyeon (packs of instant noodles) from the Ramyeon Wall and garnish your selection with 30 different toppings.

My mom brought us to this cook-your-own ramyeon joint. The kids enjoyed the interactive concept, of having stations to prepare their meals. There were two vegan options: I chose the spicy mushroom while the kids got the Jin Ramen Veggie Soon. We had seaweed, shiitake, leeks, and carrots for our toppings, all individually wrapped in sealed plastic pouches in an open chiller. Then, we cooked it ourselves in ramen stations equipped with scissors and tongs.

For drinks, we selected doy packs from another chiller to pour into preiced glasses. The peach iced tea tasted better than the saccharine-sweet watermelon juice.

The experience was very cutesy but pricey, since you can buy these ramen packs from groceries, heat water at home, and not cringe at all the unnecessary plastic waste. It was also interesting how they had a wall where you could donate for dialysis patients, as if to offset the salt overload inherent in ramen packs.

Ramyeon Bar is at 100 Presidents’ Ave., BF Homes, Parañaque, tel. no. (0920) 966-7889.

Tablo Kitchen x Cafe. Tablo serves modern Filipino comfort food. I’ve been to their Aguirre and Las Piñas locations, and the latter had a deceptively spacious function area for private parties.

They can veganize their summer salad (fresh fruits, dried cranberries, mixed greens, pink guava dressing, balsamic and candied walnuts), tofu salpicao with potato wedges and French green beans, stir-fried tofu and veggies (mixed market vegetables, tofu bites, red peppers, and black bean garlic sauce), and pasta puttanesca (tomatoes, garlic, olives, and capers). Their hot chocolate can be subbed with plant milk.

Tablo is at BF Resort, BF Homes Aguirre, South Las Piñas, and Scout Borromeo in Quezon City; tel. 277521453.

Zaiqa. Zaiqa serves authentic Indian and Mediterranean cuisine. The kids and I tried their mixed vegetable curry, hummus, samosa, and navratan biryani (seasonal vegetables slow-cooked in Indian spices and layered in basmati rice).

The service was attentive; however, even if we requested everything to be only mildly spicy, the children still found the rice and curry overwhelming, but it was just right for me. They loved the hummus.