Cosmic Poblacion, Makati - A Vegan Restaurant & Cafe — Restaurant in Makati

After spending an incredible week and a half island hopping & sipping cocktails on beaches across the Philippines, we made our way to Manila. This was the part of the trip where we wanted to wind down and just enjoy our time exploring but unfortunately both of us were getting over head colds. So there wasn’t much exploring at all. We were super bummed because we didn’t get the chance to visit every vegan restaurant on our list but one was better than none. Cosmic was the ONLY vegan restaurant we made it to & that was on our last day, 5 hours before our first flight back to the states 😂🙌🏼 (Yeah, we like to wing it & cut things close sometimes)...

Cosmic wasn’t easy to spot from the street. It sits on top of a mini mart & the entrance is tucked behind a little market. Gems aren’t easy to find & that’s exactly what this spot is. A vegan gem.

The ambiance greets you immediately as you make it up the stairs and through the sliding glass door. The murals are heavy green with an abundance of plant life & flowers, putting you in the middle of a jungle. A jungle being pumped with AC & calming colors. It’s an incredible break from outside, where you can cool off, get away from the sun & dry out that ridiculous back sweat you got going on.

There’s a few things you should know right away. This spot isn’t wheel chair accessible. There’s often times a wait, especially during peak feasting ours (aka. afternoon and early evening). It’s small, so if you get claustrophobic or have an issue with crowd noise, just be aware and go during off hours. For those who like a cold brew with their meal, Cosmic is a dry zone. They have some pretty incredible mocktails, teas & coffee to enjoy.

The drink menu features a number of mocktails, teas, coffees, kombucha and soda. They do not serve alcohol of any kind. We ordered the passion-fruit ginger & cucumber lime mocktails. Both of which were incredibly tasteful. In fact, we ordered a second round.

The starter menu features an array of tempura dishes highlighted by the sweet potato, perilla leaves & tofu skin tempura. We ordered the tempura combo platter, which included all of the above. It came out fast and hot. Delicious. Thin & crispy. Not overdone on breading. Exactly how tempura should be. Order this & order a lot of it.

To go with our tempura starter, we got the ensaladang eggplant and cucumber salad. We weren’t high on the eggplant dish but we don’t eat eggplant that often & know it’s an acquired taste. Fans of the 🍆 would likely enjoy it. We did enjoy the cucumber salad especially. It features a very interesting combination of flavor; a pesto dressing, topped with pico de gallo. We ordered this mostly because of the flavor combo & were curious if it actually worked. It absolutely did. The dish was served at room temp & with our love for cold pasta dishes, we couldn’t help but to think how good it would be served cold.

For our entrees, we ordered the spinach lasagna & miso ramen. The lasagna stole the show. The tofu ricotta & red sauce punches you in the face (not literally) with incredibly deep and delicious flavors. The pesto drizzle over the top was a nice touch. We could’ve downed an entire pan to be honest. The miso ramen was tasteful but not banging. We eat a lot of ramen & we don’t consider ourselves aficionados by any means, but it was definitely missing elements.

Let’s talk about the juicy stuff. No, not dessert but the cost of our meal. When the bills are delivered by vegan restaurants back in the states, there’s nothing juicy about it. In fact, often times the exact opposite. Cosmic on the other hand offers extremely fair priced meals. Most sit between P100-220 (thats $2-5 USD) per dish. That blew our minds. We were very impressed by this. We were also impressed by their high level of customer service despite being extremely busy. If we ever find ourselves back in the Philippines and when in Manila, Cosmic will be seeing us again & we’ll be bringing friends. Whether you’re a vegan or non, make Cosmic a meal priority in your...

Filling and moderate price

Second review: Filipino food made w/ soy protein. Although they sell seitan (processed wheat gluten) buly the kilo for home-cooking, oddly they don't sell and prepared dishes with it. And there very few actual vegetables served. Quinoa not available day I visited. Basically rice and veggie-pork. Better selection dine-in than delivery. Come for lunch or early supper.

Tried cuke salad, miso, and chili garlic rice. Good but not enough chili or garlic and wasn't offered as a condiment. Rice appeared to be almost all white rice with a token amount of red. Salad was too wet and sweet for my taste but generous bowl. Miso soup had a few veggies, seaweed flakes and had an agreeable flavour that I did not identify as miso. Must be shiro (white) miso. I am used to stronger winter miso (red, barley etc). All in all acceptable and I will return.

Service OK, food - good, prices OK-good, Seating - barely OK, location - excellent for me, menu - good, portions - OK- very good, lighting - poor, aroma of place - poor to OK, hours - poor, tables - poor, menu - OK but I missed the fine print of +8% service charge, service water - excellent, you get a bottle of it, ventilation - very poor (fans cannot make up for lack of fresh air, but perhaps the many windows do not open?)

Other: I get the impression that relations with their neighbours could be improved. Signage is poor, very limited access at entrance of walkway and stairs on side street (day I arrived vendor was mostly blocking it with a delivery) and inside a very discreet symbol of their religious sympathies as if meant to inform fellows but not alienate outsiders in a conservative Catholic nation. I don't blame them.

First review: Either Google Maps is very inaccurate or this place has closed. Today I spent 40 minutes looking for it. Nobody in the vicinity has ever heard of it and I asked eight persons within a block radius. What's more I get auto-response from their FB page, and no one picks up by phone at 19:00. Update: same day response with photo and explanation that it is...

This is one of the vegan places in Manila that I could totally vouch for and would go back again. First is finding this place- if you dont ask around it will take you awhile to find it. Look for the black eye - not along the street itself but actually on the second floor with no huge sign except on the stairs going up. Once you open the door, it will open up to a surprisingly different world of cozy vegan haven you would not expect to find in such random building.

Next is the actual crafting of the menu - my friend and I love the twist of vegan into classic Filipino dishes. Our top favorite living up to hype: Sisig with Bagnet - superrr good and willing to go back just for this! Overhyped for us was the vegan lasagna - quite okay and just typical lasagna flavor. But the most underhyped dish was the enoki mushroom tempura - surprisingly sooo good!

Best touch to the whole visit was the moka pot coffee - very barako flavor goodness, and the vegan brownie made it the perfect pairing to end the meal! :)

Overall experience worth the drive and going back again; I heard it gets full at night so go early. At noon I recommend you to park on Poblacion bars that's closed at that time. Also there is no wifi, so dont expect to make it a hangout to work unless you can do mobile hotspot (which we did!) ;) And hopefully they can expand the delivery (currently delivers but within limited...