We didn't get glowing reviews from friends so we came with low expectations. My husband and I were quite pleased with the taste of what we ordered (he had the palabok, I had the lechon). The price, not so much. But I suppose here at Cafe Manila, you pay a premium for the location, ambience and service.
My husband cooks a lot of Filipino dishes at home (like the two we ordered), so we often use his cooking as a benchmark to judge Filipino eateries/restaurants. The palabok's sauce was a bit similar to his own, but I still prefer his version especially considering Cafe Manila's $20 price. The lechon was six square pieces of pork with a mountain of greens. It was good but this was really more like lechon kawali than lechon. The sauce, we think, is custom made. Again, it was good, my husband liked it, but I would've liked it a bit sweeter and to be closer in taste to Mang Tomas.
The winner for me was the dessert, the fried suman. Two pieces of fried suman with two sweet sauces on the side and coconut shavings. The suman tasted exactly like what my grandmother makes for me, made more decadent by the accompanying sauces (back home, I just had it with plain white sugar). The suman is what would make me go back here. Actually scratch that, I wouldn't mind coming back to try their other dishes, to be able to write a bit more in my review.
I'm giving it four stars despite only ranking the mains we had as good because I think it would be pretty excellent for those new to Filipino cuisine. The menu is not overwhelming like that of Lamesa (a Filo restaurant in the CBD) and the service is the best out of all the Filipino restaurants out there. read more