Manila-based entrepreneur diversifies into farm tourism

City-bred entrepreneur John Lacanlale Danao, co-founder and managing partner of the farm-togourmet table The Green Oasis of Dupax, is proud to have pioneered haute cuisine in the closely-knit community where farmers trade produce and even give them for free during bountiful season, instead of letting the crops go to waste.

Upscale dining, he said, should not be exclusive to the people in the metro.

“Let our folks in the province experience gustatory delights at a price made affordable by the vastness of local produce the province offers,” he said.

“We believe people will patronize good food without regard to the price as long as they get good value for what they pay for. We bring the finest to this part of the province so that people will be educated on how and what fine dining is about,” he said.

The Green Oasis of Dupax is a haute cuisine restaurant at the heart of a three-hectare ancestral farmland of the Danaos in the north. The restaurant offers a unique dining experience, working on the fusion concept of Mediterranean and Filipino cuisine.

Using the harvest of the day, The Green Oasis of Dupax offers a wide range of culinary dishes from entrees to beverages and desserts, made of crops produced from the Oasis Farm and other gardens in nearby sitios.

As the restaurant has high demand for basil and other aromatic leaves, it cultivates its own herbs on a designated garden. Various vegetables like lettuce and eggplants are also grown in greenhouses next to the restaurant and the Oasis Kitchen. All produce are sustainably-sourced and 100-percent organic, giving premium to healthy eating. The Green

The restaurant supports local farmers by buying their produce and adding value to crops. At the Oasis Kitchen, the one-of-a-kind tomato pie and tomato ice cream are made from tomatoes of Ambaguio, a nearby municipality known for its teeming tomato industry.

Another unique item on the menu is the ginger ice cream, with the main ingredient sourced from the farmers of Santa Fe. There are also the cinnamon onions rings sourced from the farmers of Aritao.

The bounty of local farms is more than enough to supply daily provision for the restaurant. Even edible flowers have a niche in the restaurant’s unusual menu.

Danao said the restaurant strives to come up with a peculiar menu to be a crowd-drawer to both local and foreign tourists.

“We’re actually laying the foundation to make Nueva Vizcaya a gourmet dining destination. This is the only way we can help elevate the status of farmers here. We boost the livelihood of the farmers, we boost the local economy in the province,” he said.

He takes pride in having contributed some of the unique food preparations. The artisanal ice cream collection has unusual flavors like Roselle Hibiscus or