Manila: Fine dine at Pepato

Tomato Pasta at Pepato One of my favorite photography subject is food. That’s why I really enjoy it whenever I get to cover establishments l...

Tomato Pasta at Pepato

One of my favorite photography subject is food. That’s why I really enjoy it whenever I get to cover establishments like restaurants. Aside from having to take photos of their dishes, we get taste or even eat them after most of the time. The same goes here when we covered one of Greenbelt 2’s row of restaurants named Pepato.

Mushroom Pasta

As delectable Food Photography can be, it’s quite a tricky subject as well. As much as I like to shoot on natural light most of the time or have a controlled lighting of strobes (which I don’t have), there are times when you really have to compromise when you are on the field. In this case I have to settle for the indoor dim and warm lighting inside the restaurant. As much as I love the interiors here, the light is tricky. So many directional shadows cast on the food and the warm light changing the colors on the food on the picture. So thank god for my tripod, 35mm Zuiko prime lens and of course RAW files as well so I can change the temperature of the photo afterwards.

Grilled cheese

Aside from that you only have a limited time to take shots of the food on this occasion. Not only because the main chef have a gig (catering gig) out somewhere and is somewhat in a hurry. So food are served one after another. But I must admire the chef here (forgot her name) is really kind and a very good cook as well. She works a lot of magic on her dishes.

Expensive fish dish

Now on to the food. I must apologize if I can’t remember the names. They are mostly Italian or French sounding names that my tongue already had a hard time pronouncing them so let alone remember as well. So let’s go for the basic names here as I only describe them and let my accompanying writer do the wordy-work there. What I noticed on the food here are the very basic ingredients they use. But what is important is the quality of these ingredients that some are imported from Italy and even Egypt costing hundreds of dollars per pound. So the place isn’t really cheap I may say.

Salad

The first picture which has baby tomatoes on pasta is very good.The tomatoes are very delicious and sweet, which really complements the neutral tasting pasta well. The second photo of the mushroom pasta is a winner for me. One of the best pasta I’ve tasted. The cream sauce is just perfect and the mushrooms are well cooked and tasty without being rubbery in texture. We learned also that these mushrooms were imported from Egypt. Wow! Do they have better tasting mushrooms there than here? I wonder. They also served these yellow gooey thing with the top burnt. Turns out it was grilled cheese. That’s new. When I got to taste it, it was ok. But when you mixed it with the leafy veggies along with it, it’s better! They actually taste great together.

Dessert

The next photo with the fish dish is new on their menu. We never got to taste this one. But I wanted to show it here as there’s another expensive ingredient here. A handful of those brown strips are also worth hundreds of dollars per pounds. I forgot what it’s called though. As for the salad, topped with dressings and olive oil, I thought that the bottom container was taco. Turns out it was cheese. Salad taste good as well. And to cap it all is a well presented dessert. There’s these delicate biscuits with some icing which is good because it’s not that sweet. In fact, the fruits were a lot sweeter.

Large cheese cauldron

Another worthy thing to take note in this resto is their giant cheese cauldron. Actually, I didn’t know this whole cauldron is made of cheese. If any rat would stumble upon it, it would be their heaven. hahaha. Anyways, what they do here is they pour in some cooking alcohol and flame up the center of the cauldron to soften the cheese surface then they put the pasta in there to mix up with the chese. After which they put in some spices for the pasta. Impressive, but too bad I wasn’t able to taste it.

Ground floor bar

The interiors here is lavishly impressive actually, with a triangular motif patterns on the wall added by impressive triangular chandeliers. Lighting is very warm and the temperature is just about right. Going up on a spiral staircase to the 2nd level are more dining areas, usually reserved on occasions. What impressed me are the cubic styles on the walls and ceilings highlighted by back lights. And to keep it interesting are assortment of collectible items displayed on the walls, from large chess pieces, baseball bats, mini figurines and more which we were told the restaurant owner Margarita Flores, fancies. What I don’t like about this upper floor is the low cieling. I’m sure a lot of taller people would feel claustrophobic here.

Upper level dining area interiors

Pepato in Greenbelt 2 is quite a restaurant experience. The food, the ones we tasted are really good, but you have to pay quite a hefty price for it. Still if you are looking for elegant tasting food, Pepato really can deliver