Mano’s Greek Taverna - Tagaytay

Restaurant Details
Location: Calamba Road, Barangay San Jose, Tagaytay City
Cuisine: Greek
Price: PP
Attire: Shorts and slippers – there’s no air conditioning

Our Details
What we had: Tzatziki, Moussaka, Lamb Gyros, Grilled Porkchop
Rating: ˜˜

Comments:
Food: Rendition of Greek cuisine is better than Greek restaurants in Manila (Cyma, Mati, Café Mediterranean) but still with improvement areas. Tzatziki lacked the punch of garlic and the yogurt was a bit on the watery side. Moussaka was actually ok, there was no overload of béchamel sauce – they could cut down on the potatoes, but that’s how the Greeks would have it. Lamb Gyros and Grilled Porkchop were really nothing special, the latter had parts which are dry.
Price Price is commensurate to the food quality
Service Normal service that you would expect from household maid – because of the lack of adequate training, you need to constantly remind them of what needs to be done.
Ambiance Imagine a house in Santorini on the outside and one of the cafés at Plaka on the inside. Then throw in the dust from passing cars, the heat from the sun, flies everywhere, and (ugh, I hope this was a one-time thing) lots of kids
Bathroom Unsurprisingly unacceptable

The Long Story
We’ve passed by this place when we went to Tagaytay before, and then did some research on what other people think about it. Finally, we happened to have a trip with friends and got to try it. When we were ordering, the waitress said they ran out of pita and Greek bread, so we, I mean, I freaked out because this means nearly half of the stuff on the menu was not available. She said the bread would be ready in an hour – it takes 15 minutes at the most to make pita bread!! I actually considered leaving, and was quite vocal about it. In the end, they were able to serve the bread in time…. I wonder now what they did. Unfortunately I was not able to try the yogurt with honey, which was one of my all-time favorites during our Greece trip. (If you do try it, please let me know if it’s really good)

I love Greek food and I have been searching for the perfect Tzatziki in Manila, or in Asia for that matter. The closest I got is the Olive Garden at the Emporium Mall’s Gourmet Market… this is in Bangkok, which means I need to consume tubs of Tzatziki 3 days after I get back home. If you get the chance to grab this, try ditching the pita bread and eating it with Chubi Corn (looks like cornets but better, it comes in a green box and has Japanese stuff written all over it). I wouldn’t really say it was over-rated, because the food was not bad, though friends were really not too impressed by it either. We wouldn’t drive 2 hours to eat at an average restaurant.