Cafe Manila

Food was authentic and delicious and well presented. It’s BYO wine so bring a good bottle.

The best filo resto I have ever been in this part of the world. I like the taste and the presentation. For me the taste may not be what a filipino will expect but the authenticity still remains. Kudos Café Manila.

I am glad I did not read the reviews. What drew me to this restaurant was the fresh sounding menu. On a stripe of restaurants pasta, fries, steaks are the normal
Fare so to find fresh sounding dishes it was to hard to pass up. My main of marinated chicken was piled high with fresh vegetables, there was a tang you expect from Filipino food and it was so refreshing. The dessert of toasted sesame seed gnocchi was an experience it was not to sweet or to rich.

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 Café 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 Café 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.

I think my trip to Café Manila was marred partly by my expectations. While this advertises Filipino cuisine, some of the dishes we ordered were café-​ized (more details in my review,) which initially took us aback. Anyway, I’ve tried my best to write this review from a more objective standpoint, and not as someone who has strong ideas about what Filipino food should be.
Location — it’s a short walk from Milsons Point station. It’s practically just outside the station, so it’s easy to get to by public transportation. The place itself looks like a really nice café. The décor doesn’t scream particularly scream «Filipino,» which I guess is a harbinger of the kind of food of they prepare.
Service — service was really good. Our server was friendly and was helpful. Food came out in a reasonable amount of time.
Food — the food seems like a mix of more traditional dishes and café-​ized (there goes my invented phrase again) food. On the more traditional side was:
— palabok. This is a noodle dish with pork, shrimp, egg, and various other toppings. It was a substantial serving, and it looked yummy and the toppings were good, but (!!) the sauce seemed to lack a bit of flavor, a sentiment shared by my friends.
— kare kare. A stew with a peanut sauce. This was good.
And on the other hand, was:
— inasal. OK, I’m a HUGE inasal fan (my dad hails from the region where it originated, so I have pretty high standards) and I was disappointed with this dish. :(It’s basically a chicken fillet barbecued, served on top of lots of (what I think are) fried onions, or something that appeared like atchara. It doesn’t taste like «real» inasal at all. :(My thoughts on what «real inasal» aside, I thought the chicken was a bit dry and a little burnt, though.
— lechon. The fried pork itself was good. But unlike what a (regular Filipino) would expect a dish to be like, this consisted of several pieces of pork, and lots of greens. So when you’re ordering this dish, don’t expect a large serving of pork — it’s really just a single serve.
The winner of the night was: the bagoong.
Bagoong is a fermented shrimp paste, and it’s one of my favorite things ever. We had some bagoong to go with the kare kare, before we figured out that the bagoong was really good on its own (it had some fried pork in it, so it was seriously like a meal in itself and not just a condiment) and asked for more. Hehe. We liked it so much we asked if we could buy it, and they said we could, as long as we called ahead because they don’t have it readily available.
There is also a $ 3/​person corkage fee which we were surprised about — we didn’t notice it anywhere. Maybe it’s on the menu but we missed it? A friend said she’d looked though and didn’t see anything. So that was a bit annoying.
In summary, 3 stars for me. If Unilocal had half stars I’d give it a 3.5. As the name implies, this really is more of a café, and not a Filipino restaurant per se. Some of the dishes have been modified to become more café-​ish, and the ambience reflects this as well. Maybe it’s to suit the Australian palate more, or maybe the chef just wanted to try something new. It may not be the place to go to if you’re craving for super authentic, home cooked meals, but I’d definitely recommend it if someone wanted to try Filipino flavors in a relaxed, café atmosphere.