Artichoke Adobo

Check out the nun at the left hand corner.

If you’re hankering for some medieval dining, there is this restaurant that the Hepa Contessa recommends. Now it’s nothing fancy (actually the opposite) and is just a little pricey for it’s serving size but I do think you should try this at least once in your life. I’m planning to eat there maybe twice a year.

Monasteryo is a theme restaurant heavily influenced by that Italian resto near Don Bosco, Makati. It offers novel meals inspired by the cooking of the different religious Catholic orders. To set the mood, the waiters are dressed in navy blue, close colar slim suits that clearly allude to seminarian garb. They all even wear a small gold cross on their collar to bring the message home. The waiteresses, on the other hand, wear those bib-like white things that flying nuns used to wear. First time you see them, it gives a minor shock, but I guess that was the intention of the owners all along.

The food they serve is a mix, a fusion, if you will. To be more precise, it is a fusion of Good Food and Bad Food. I mean, I will absolutely rave about the Beer Soup that I had and then rant about the Beef Ribs (which was their specialty, apparently). Their designer Ice Cream was good. Their Tuna-Brocolli casserole was interesting but, in the end, gives no reason to exalt the high heavens.

Dining in their bare, dungeon-like space, I can’t help but think of how the Dungeons and Dragons characters would have loved it there. I imagine Raistlin and Caramon sharing a bowl of Vegetable Soup and fried mutton. Or Flint Fireforge shouting out the the scrambling nun-wenches for some more ale. I was even tempted to go there in full D&D attire, broadsword in hand. Who knows, I might get lucky and find a much needed Cleric for my party, or a Paladin even… and maybe a damsel who will offer me her hand in exchange for my party slaying the legendary Robinson’s Galleria hydra (do you guys remember that urban legend?). Oh well… one can fantasize.

So please try this place out. It is in Greenbelt 1, in between the Delifrance and the Mr. Donut stores. It is in a location that has never been too lucky (with places like Juansoy, et al, closing down). You can’t miss it. Just look for the most desolate and empty place in the mall. Please, please, please give it a shot. I’d want to go back there next year and see that it is still operational. Or else you better find me another place I can sit and wait for my party while having a bowl of Beer Soup.