{"id":677,"date":"2018-12-11T18:24:00","date_gmt":"2018-12-11T10:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/master.k8s.p4.greenpeace.org\/philippines\/press\/677\/vegan-longganisa-thats-not-a-typo-and-more-at-plant-based-qc-restaurant-pipino-1-of-5-parts\/"},"modified":"2021-12-01T20:39:47","modified_gmt":"2021-12-01T12:39:47","slug":"vegan-longganisa-thats-not-a-typo-and-more-at-plant-based-qc-restaurant-pipino-1-of-5-parts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/philippines\/story\/677\/vegan-longganisa-thats-not-a-typo-and-more-at-plant-based-qc-restaurant-pipino-1-of-5-parts\/","title":{"rendered":"Vegan longganisa (that’s not a typo) and more at plant-based QC restaurant Pipino – 1 of 5 parts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"A<\/p>\n

PSA: Bringing in more plant-based meals to your diet doesn\u2019t mean\u00a0having to eat salads all the time.<\/p>\n

There are tons of delicious options that contain fruits, vegetables,\u00a0grains, nuts, and soy products!<\/strong> Think langka barbecue ribs, root\u00a0vegetable chips and garlic yogurt dip, and ramen with veggie ham and\u00a0mushrooms!<\/p>\n

This holiday season, we bring you five Quezon City restaurant options\u00a0where you can make merry AND make a kinder choice for the planet!<\/p>\n

First up, PIPINO, located at 39 Malingap St., Teachers Village.<\/p>\n

\"Alessa<\/p>\n

You might think having a boyfriend who owns a restaurant comes with\u00a0perks. But this was not the case for vegetarian Alessa Lanot, who\u00a0couldn\u2019t find anything to eat at Pino, owned by her now husband PJ\u00a0Lanot. So, she convinced him to include vegetable dishes on the menu.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was Earth Day of 2010. Six months later, we decided to open the\u00a0second floor restaurant (Pipino). 10-10-10 \u2018yun eh, October 10, 2010,\u201d\u00a0she told us in an interview.<\/p>\n

Pipino serves Filipino plant-based food, including vegan versions of\u00a0Pino\u2019s best-selling kare-kare and lemongrass skewers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe decided to focus on Filipino vegan food, because the reason why\u00a0Filipinos can\u2019t go vegan is because there are not a lot of options.\u00a0It\u2019s easier to go vegetarian,\u201d Alessa said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Starters include veggie-fied staples like buffalo cauliflower wings\u00a0and mushroom salpicao.<\/p>\n

Of course, there are salads too, but not the boring kind you eat just\u00a0so you can say you had your vegetables today. Pili ranch is made of\u00a0greens with toasted pili nuts, breaded olives, vegan ranch dressing,\u00a0and walnut parmesan; while quinoa salad contains dried berries,\u00a0greens, grapes, and tofu ricotta.<\/p>\n

Have some cilantro soup with it or veggie sinigang, or a pasta dish\u00a0like kalabasa arrabbiata or truffle mac and cheese.<\/p>\n

There are burgers too, featuring black bean patties, chickpea and\u00a0veggie protein patties, and portobello mushrooms. As for the main\u00a0dish, you can actually get a plant-based longsilog, cauli-bangus, or\u00a0tofu bistek. And who can forget the Pinoy staple? Choose among\u00a0cauliflower rice, cranberry brown rice, and vegan bagoong brown rice.<\/p>\n

Want something sweet to top it off? How about vegan leche flan or\u00a0mango soy ice cream?<\/p>\n

\"Buffalo<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we started, our target market was really the strict vegetarians,\u00a0the strict vegans, those who had health issues. Because you basically\u00a0<\/strong>go vegetarian for three reasons: for your health, for animals, and for\u00a0<\/strong>less carbon footprint.\u00a0<\/strong>For me, it was the less carbon footprint that\u00a0really mattered. When I read the stats of how raising a pound of beef\u00a0takes 11 or 20 times more water than raising a vegetable, that\u2019s what\u00a0drew me to it mostly,\u201d Alessa shared.<\/p>\n

While they were targeting these customers at the beginning, their\u00a0customers today have gotten much younger.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot more people are going veg not because they\u2019re vegetarian but\u00a0because they just want to have a good meal. A good, light, healthy\u00a0meal,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Alessa herself got hooked on plant-based meals at an early age. Her\u00a0grandmother would always serve them a meat, fish, and vegetable dish\u00a0during family meals. \u201cThe meat would always be close to my dad, and as\u00a0you go down the table, the veggies were closer to me. So it was always\u00a0my preference growing up.\u201d<\/p>\n

In high school, she toyed with the idea of being a vegetarian for\u00a0about six months. But because plant-based meals weren\u2019t always\u00a0available in the school cafeteria and she couldn\u2019t always bring her\u00a0own food, she went pesco-vegetarian instead. Later on she studied some\u00a0courses in the Natural Gourmet Institute in the United States, where\u00a0she learned how to make being vegetarian work.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnang-una, (dapat) balanced, hindi pwedeng isang kulay lang ng ulam\u00a0<\/strong>ang kakainin mo.<\/strong> Each color represents a different type of nutrition,\u00a0a nutrient. As much as possible, (have) different colors for the meal,\u00a0different colors on your plate. If you don\u2019t know how to count\u00a0macronutrients, I think that\u2019s the best way of doing it,\u201d Alessa\u00a0advised.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With the kind of diverse dishes they serve at Pipino, it only shows\u00a0that eating plant-based and eating healthy \u2013 even when going out with\u00a0friends \u2013\u00a0 has not only become easier, but much more interesting as\u00a0well.<\/p>\n

Stay tuned to this page for the rest of the series! And if you have\u00a0other plant-based suggestions, type them in the comments section\u00a0below!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n \t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\tReconnect with food\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

It\u2019s time for an eco-food revolution.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t \n TAKE ACTION\n <\/a>\n \t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/section>\n\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PSA: Bringing in more plant-based meals to your diet doesn\u2019t mean\u00a0having to eat salads all the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[23],"p4-page-type":[16],"class_list":["post-677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sustainability","tag-food","p4-page-type-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/philippines\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/philippines\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/philippines\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/philippines\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/philippines\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/philippines\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11307,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/philippines\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677\/revisions\/11307"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/philippines\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/philippines\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/philippines\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/philippines\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/philippines\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}