The Vegetarian Kitchen’s ‘Breaded Tofu Fish Wrap with Mangoes and Eggless Mayonnaise

THE metro’s Chinoy community turned out in big numbers for Tzu Chi Foundation’s Fiesta Verde: A Benefit Food and Health Festival, which took place at the Metrowalk Commercial Complex’s Metrotent recently.

The two-day healthy food festival featured several booths offering vegetarian cuisine, nutritious juices, food supplements, fresh produce like salad greens, fresh fruits, organic toiletries, and a variety of herbal plants such as basil and thyme, and medicinal plants like ashitaba and gotu kola. Lots of delicious vegetarian dishes were also available, including vegetarian versions of dinuguan and lumpia, offered by known vegetarian restaurants Vegetarian Kitchen and Daily Veggie N Café.

Here are some of the exciting finds that flavorsoflife.com.ph made from the offerings of Fiesta Verde…

Breaded Tofu “Fish” Wrap with Mangoes and Eggless Mayonnaise from The Vegetarian Kitchen. Trade fair goers ordered a lot of this fully vegetarian dish, which tasted as good as it looked.

The Vegetarian Kitchen’s Grilled Steak Wrap with Mushrooms and Homemade Barbecue Sauce

Grilled “Steak” Wrap with Mushrooms and Homemade Barbecue Sauce from The Vegetarian Kitchen. This was another best-selling item from the booth of The Vegetarian Kitchen.

Babci’s Pierogi

Pierogi. Babci Kuchnia, a traditionally Polish food business, offered both sweet and savory Pierogi, made from all natural ingredients just the way Pra-Babcia made it 100 years ago. Pierogi is a Polish dumpling of unleavened dough traditionally stuffed with potato and sauerkraut fillings, first boiled then fried. Sweet Pierogi options included Chocolate; Cheese & Rum Raisin with Rum Butter Sauce; and Caramelized Apple, Banana and Cinnamon; while for the savory treats, the choices were Potato, Onion & Cheese; Beef, Vegetables & Cheese; Classic Meat; Beef & Sauerkraut; Cabbage, Imported Mushrooms & Truffle Oil; Sauerkraut & Mushroom; and Babcia’s Chicken.

Special Suman Stuffed with Mango

Special Suman Stuffed with Mango. The special suman or sticky rice is wrapped in banana leaves in a different way–pouchbag style. On weekends, it is available at the Greenhills Weekend Market (Saturdays, from 6:00 to 11:00 a.m.) and at the Northeast Greenhills Weekend Market (Sundays, from 6:00 to 11:00 a.m.).

Green Fit Dietary Fiber Supplement

Green Fit Dietary Fiber Supplement. It’s a 100%, all-natural food supplement that contains Wheat Grass, Fructo-oligosaccharides, Oil Palm Fiber, Psyllium Seed Husk, Apple Powder, Spirulina, Alfalfa Chlorophyll and Aloe Vera. A product of Malaysia, it aids in digestion, improves bowel function to flush out toxins, increases proliferation of colonic bacteria beneficial for intestinal health, prevents gastrointestinal ulcer and inflammation, and regulates blood cholesterol and sugar level, among others.

Vom Fass White Truffle Oil

Vom Fass White Truffle Oil. Gourmet olive oil at its finest, Vom Fass offered it in many different flavors, just as they do in their stores, such as Shangri-La Plaza. White Truffle Oil is one of the most coveted. You can choose the bottle or container that you want and in the amount that you want, too. At Fiesta Verde, though, Vom Fass had its oils in fixed containers.

Queen B honey products

Queen B Honey Cider, Raw and Wild Honey, and Other Honey Products. Queen B Apiaries has its own honey bee farm, and the honey that the bees produce in the farm is sold in the form of Raw and Wild Honey (which contains vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and amino acids), Bee Pollen (rich in Vitamin B, Folic Acid and Natural Amino Acid), Propolis (a natural antibiotic), Honey Cider (a powerful detoxifying and purifying agent), Royal Jelly (a natural rejuvenator that stimulates tissue regeneration and growth), Honey with Pollen (pollen melted with honey that helps prevent illness), and Honey with Fresh Royal Jelly (has antioxidant properties that fights damage from free radicals).

Honey Soap, Bee Pollen Soap and Royal Jelly Soap from Queen B

Queen B Honey Soap, Bee Pollen Soap and Royal Jelly Soap. These exquisite soaps come from the same apiary.

Ju.D Lao’s fruitcakes and pastries

Ju.D’s Pastries & Confectionery. The best fruitcake in town! Ju.D Lao offers different variants of fruitcakes as well as cookies and pastries.

Gallipott balms

Gallipott Hand and Body Balm (top) and Lip Balm (bottom) in different natural flavors. Gallipott Organic Apothecary selects and uses only the purest and naturally derived oils of organic plants and flowers to make all-natural and handcrafted products.

Gallipott’s handcrafted soaps

Gallipott’s Handcrafted Soaps. Variants include Grapefruit Thyme, Lemon Tart and Cranberry.

Seaweed sandwich snacks in different variants

Seaweed snacks from Daily Veggie. My choices were Almond Seaweed Sandwich, Pumpkin Seeds Seaweed Sandwich, and Sesame Seaweed Sandwich. I love seaweeds, and these sandwiches have nori sheets as ‘bread’ and either almonds, pumpkin seeds or sesame as filling.

Maitake Crisps and Seaweed Sandwich

Mushroom chips and more Seaweed sandwich! Ejji’s Japan Maitake Crisps make mushrooms a natural, light and healthy snack—and they’re crunchy, too! And here’s more seaweed sandwich for me to munch on guiltlessly.

Fresh kiwi from New Zealand

Fresh kiwifruits from New Zealand. Delicious kiwifruits were sold for an affordable Php100 for six pieces during the trade fair. A bargain indeed.

Proceeds from Fiesta Verde went to Tzu Chi Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in Taiwan in 1966 with the objective of assisting in the field of charity, medicine, education, environmental protection, and promotion of humanistic values and community volunteerism. Present in 54 countries, Tzu Chi Foundation established its Philippine chapter in 1994 and has been extending fast and invaluable assistance to the government especially during times of disaster. The Foundation’s contributions to Leyte’s rehabilitation after Typhoon Yolanda wreaked havoc on the province has, to date, amounted to over Php2 Billion.