A garden’s secret

The best dining places may not always be in the usual restaurants found in malls or party hubs. At times, these can spring from simple nearby residential areas.

One recent discovery is ‘My Mother’s Garden,’ a residence-turned-private-dining-restaurant owned by fashion designer Malu Veloso. Tucked in a quiet place along 2650 Zamora St., Pasay City (a tricycle-drive away from EDSA Taft LRT station), the restaurant can be considered as a perfect haven for those who seek an intimate dining experience. Though the restaurant has been around for a long time, visiting Melbourne-based Chef Joey Veloso, son of Malu, has added a few, new tricks from his chef’s sleeves — unique Australian fusion cuisine.

Take for instance Chef Joey’s Wild Rice Salad, a combination of steamed white, black, and red rice, blended with peanuts, apricot, and raisins, mixed with dried mango bits make up for a colorful ‘Caribbean’ feast. Much like the dazzling display of garlands set on the dining table, including the ‘cozy garden’ feel of the whole house, the wild rice salad is a complete meal in itself.

And there’s the tasty Vietnamese beef dish on top of the deep fried sotanghon noodles with slices of fried eggs (scrambled), drizzled with caramelized brown peanuts. The beef was quite chewy but the taste, superb – enhanced by coriander and chili-garlic flavors.

During our second visit, Chef Joey prepared a Portuguese Chicken (Peri-Peri). The chicken cured with chili, was tasty, tender, and terrific.

The nice thing about Chef Joey’s style of cooking is that despite the unavailability of some of the ingredients, he is able to modify his authentic Australian fusion recipes using local ingredients.

A particularly interesting dish is the North African Chermoula Salad, a fresh vegetable salad which looks like ‘pinakbet‘ consisting of lettuce, mongo sprouts, string beans, squash, and tomatoes, topped with sweetly cured and fried cube-sliced tofu and black olives drizzled with Caesar salad dressing.

The Spanish pasta is so unique that Chef Joey makes a sauce out of chorizo from Tuguegarao topped with black olives and prawns. And his mixed seafood grill is a veritable meal in itself – a medley of clams, prawns, Tuguegarao longaniza, and squid. It doesn’t get more refreshing than to sip at Chef Joey’s original version of tropical fruit and soda drink.

“Australians are always on a look out for something new, so you have to innovate and give them the best food there is,” Joey says. In this garden full of epicurean treasures, Chef Joey innovates and every customer salivates.

Other dishes worth a try are the Sri Lankan curry chicken, an ‘Island-Indian’ inspired chicken dish of grilled baby corn, capsicum, and pita bread with sugar-fried pineapple chunks; Filipino Caesar’s salad with tahong, sweet ham, and capers; and Tuna Niçoise salad, a Pinoy-style mix of greens topped with sliced hard-boiled eggs, black olives, and mayo dressing.