Writing a restaurant review from time to time will make you seek for any place unique.  An experience at the Green Pastures at Mandaluyong City in Metro Manila is one that you hope to relive often.

Flying in from Jakarta just the day before, I was in an all day meeting on climate change when a colleague said: “rather than dinner at the meeting venue why don’t we go to an organic restaurant, pretty fitting for today’s meeting theme.”

She raved about the place during the 15 minutes brisk walk to the Shangri-La Plaza where it is located.

Entering the Green Pastures in the hot evening we were welcomed with a pleasant ambience. A vertical garden next to an open kitchen adorned the wooden setting.

Chef Robby Goco the creator and owner of Green Pastures spent 5 years to plan for all details before he launched Green Pastures two years ago.

Green Pastures is the farm-to-table, back-to-basics, organic restaurant with a tagline: original, local, organic.  Almost all of the ingredients are sourced in the Philippines and chef Robby does not tolerate synthetic seasonings.

“The philosophy behind Green Pastures,” chef Robby says “is to have the taste of the food as the main focus. It is to offer food the way it is supposed to be. The food is not your usual bland, lackluster organic kitchen offerings but rather food of exceptional taste presented in the most creative ways. It is like gourmet organic with the restaurant offering duck, roast beef, chicken cooked slow for as long as six hours.”

A friendly server greeted us with a paper menu, designed in a simple way as the menu changes frequently based on the season. Reading the menu is an excitement in itself and makes you want to order everything. Luckily there are ten of us, hence we could have quite a number of selections.

Green Pastures categorized its menu into: small plates, soup, signature salads, whole grain bowls, first course, specialty pasta, meat and bread, faux rice (cauliflower) – 0 carbs, gluten free, commandable mains, grill, large plates, and sides.

 Green Pastures

Chef Robby Goco is a graduate from California Culinary Academy in San Francisco and honed his skills in the Mediterranean area before heading back to the Philippines. He plays a major role in the success of several restaurants in the country, including Cyma Greek Restaurants, Le Monet Hotel, Hama Japanese Boracay, Charlie's Grind and Grill Burgers and Green Pastures. Chef Robby directly purchases his ingredients from farmers and produces his own cheese and sources from reliable suppliers. In fact, house made cheese is first on his menu list.

Some of us ordered vegetarian dishes while others ordered meat-based food with the following as our final selection:

Toast organic mushrooms- sous vide egg, house made ricotta and cacciaocavallo cheese.

Gluten free fried duck you – duck fat fries, duck skin chicaron, duck confit.

Vegan Korean fried cauliflower – soy garlic glazed, house made sriracha mayo.

Seafood - Bangus sardine home made in a bottle, fried kesong puti, toast.

Harvest chowder soup- river shrimps, squash, bacon, potatoes, corn, light cream.

Gluten free farmhouse salad - shredded kale, chopped romaine, kombu roasted chicken, Mambo goat cheese, hard boiled eggs, dinelli organic bacon, corn, ripe mangoes, grape tomatoes, honey mustard dill vinaigrette.

Gluten free harvest bowl- organic brown rice, shredded kale, roasted sweet potatoes, Fuji apples, cranberries, almonds, roasted chicken, fresh goat cheese, balsamic vinaigrette, micro green.

Classic grilled cheese- cheddar, Bacolod cacciocavallo cheese and parmesan,  served with roasted cherry tomato soup and sweet potato chips.

Vegetarian burger that doesn’t suck- organic chickpea, mushroom, leeks, celery and eggplants with house made cheddar cheese, potato bun.

Grilled asparagus pencil- sous vide egg, shaved pecorino.

MGM Grand- mango, ginger, malunggay.

Cold elixir to energize - carrot, orange, grapefruit, ginger, cayenne pepper.

We did not ask for coffee and desserts but took note of the selections of coffee served in Green Pastures.

Chef Robby Gocco keeps his promise. We had a gourmet organic dinner in a casual surrounding.  All our choices were of exceptional taste presented in the most creative ways. He practiced what he outlined in his talks that sustainability in food service consists of four elements for success: food source, restaurant design, cleaning materials and waste management, and seasonal evolving menus.

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