After SeriAsia, we went with MBA friends to Pino for dinner and to celebrate Val’s coming of age :P Teachers Village, a heretofore purely residential zone, has seen some rather rapid commercialization in recent years. Among these commercial establishments are Pino and the related Pipino. Pino is supposed to mean “fine” as in fine dining. But it most certainly is not. More realistically, pino means “Filipino“. Their menu is full of Filipino fusion dishes. And by fusion, it means a Filipino dish fused with another Filipino dish. For example, bagnet binagoongan, kare-kareng bagnet, and laing-stuffed crispy pata. One thing you immediately notice is that these favorites are heart-stopping dishes. Yummy stuff but definitely not for the faint-of-heart. Good thing there’s Pipino just upstairs which offers healthier, animal-anguish-free, vegetarian meals. Pipino incidentally means “cucumber” which is a pretty accurate representation for a vegetarian restaurant. Hooray for choice!