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Coconuts Hot Spot —Nomnomnom Happy Food, or simply Nom, is a vegetarian-friendly restaurant in Quezon City that’s as dainty and pretty as it is healthy and delicious. Here, there are no beef dishes, just mostly fish and vegetables, with a few chicken offerings. The restaurant has been at it for about five years already, moving to its current 3/F location in July 2012.
Enter the cozy 30-seater restaurant and right off the bat, you’ll notice this is a girl’s Pinterest board come true. One wall is covered with real book pages, already yellowing, with an elegent tree outlined and punctuated with dainty drawings of flowers, birds, and birdhouses. On the adjacent white wall, a collection of different sized frames, display Instagram-worthy images.
The tables and chairs are painted a dainty white but they’re chipping off beautifully — wabi-sabi in action. Its al fresco area can seat another 20, which is an awesome place to stay if you’re going to come here for girl talk (read: gossip with your friends). Inside, it’s small so you’ll risk having the next table hear your juicy kwento.
But maybe not. Because in Nom, there’s a lot of conversational pieces in Nom you’ll soon forget about your chismis. There’s the aforementioned tree wall that’s almost begging for a selfie. Take the necessary shot and then sit yourself down. Read the menu and notice how playfully named the dishes are. There’s a pizza called “Malinomnom,” another called “Talong and Lasting Love.” The squash soup is called “Squashing Pumpkins” and the collection of four different dips is called “Fourplay.” If only the entire menu reads this way.
But their names aren’t the best thing about them. At Nom, it’s the generosity of ingredients and portioning of the food that will take front and center. Take for instance the Seafood Cartoccio (PHP250), a tomato-based seafood pasta that has more seafood and sauce than pasta noodles. It arrives wrapped in foil, an imposing and impressive sight that you’ll want to open up and attack.
The Lime Chicken Strips (PHP200) is thickly coated with delicious cream, which can get dangerously dense, if it weren’t for the nice lift that the lime provides.
The Talong and Lasting Love Pizza (PHP280) is a vegetarian with eggplant as its main star. It’s a rustic affair, topped with grated cheddar cheese and strips of basil.
Leave room for dessert. The Mango Crepe Cake (PHP140) is a lovely little thing, so fine and soft it’s difficult to believe there’s more than 20 layers of crepe to make for it. And then there’s the Forget Me Nut Pizza, that’s only been on the menu for one week. It features homemade hazelnut generously on the same pizza dough used for the savory pizzas, and then topped with slivers of hazelnut. It is still trying to get its bearings right but already it is very promising.
By the end of your meal, you’ll realize the entire restaurant is a Pinterest board come to life. From its décor down to its dishes, from the dishes’ names to their taste… and then you’ll find yourself uploading your Nom photos to Pinterest, allowing that girl’s Pinterest dreams come in full circle.
3/F Po’s Building, Scout Madriñan cor Tomas Morato, Quezon City. +63 2 5171339. Daily 12-10pm.
What we had:
Fried Ravioli
Lime Chicken Strips
Seafood Cartoccio
Talong and Lasting Love Pizza
Mango Crepe Cake
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