Casa Rap: Organic Garden Restaurant

An unplanned weekend trip to Lipa, Batangas to see a friend provided us an opportunity to visit the often talked about Casa Rap Restaurant in San Jose (a neighboring town of Lipa). The restaurant cum garden can be reached by exiting Lipa (Tambo) exit from the Star Expressway and turning left after the toll booth going to San Jose town direction. Just go straight until the kilometer marker (km 90/ SJ 0). The place is on the right side.

casa rap

Above: The kilometer marker

Above: The Casa Rap signboard

Previous visitors have written and raved about the garden restaurant which provides a respite and soothes the souls of tired city dwellers. Ma Ceres P. Doyo also wrote about it in an issue of Philippine Daily Inquirer Sunday Magazine on October 19, 2008 as the cover story Art from Nature’s Discards.

Above: The framed copy of the Sunday Inquirer Magazine

What interested me more though was the organic gardening practice and advocacy of the owner. I wanted to see firsthand how she tends to the small patch of land. I would have wanted to ask a few questions from Ms. Emma Alday (the farmer-artist owner) but she was not around. Her staff told me that she now spends more time in her Tiaong farm which is way expansive than where Casa Rap is. It was not a disappointment though as I was able to see the small garden which showcases the lush vegetables, herbs, ferns, flowers and fruits dotting the place. It is an ordered chaos typical of a natural garden. Each plant plays a role in the symbiosis necessary to maintain a healthy balance. I observed that she uses a combination of compost and coconut husk fiber to improve the soil. Mineral water bottles are recycled as pots all teeming with herbs and vegetables. The Casa Rap just proves a point that a small piece of land can sustain a typical household’s vegetable needs.

Above: Anyone know this flower?

A pigpen housing the vegetable-fed pigs sits just around the corner of the restaurant. Surprisingly, there was no unwanted odor coming from the pens. Casa Rap conducts seminar-workshops on raising pigs without the bad odors and unnecessary water and feed wastes. The odorless pigpen inside Casa Rap is quite a contrast to the somewhat foul-smelling air whiffing from the adjacent piggeries and poultries in the area. It is a sad thing that the livestock growers in the area have also polluted the river below. We descended to inspect the river below and were disappointed to see the polluted water (although my kids cannot resist wading in the flowing water). There are clear spring holes flowing from the side of the mountains but I think there is some degree of contamination as well.

Above: One of the springs on the riverside

We had a rather ordinary lunch of sinigang na sugpo, pansit canton and crispy pata (supposedly from organically raised pig but the staff was not sure if it really such). If it is any consolation though, I really liked the ambiance of the garden setting, unhurried pacing, tarragon and mint teas (we ordered after the meal) and the memorable bonding experience with my family.