19-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
This modest eatery offers some of Sydney's most traditional Filipino food
Between sips of a cup of sweet instant coffee made with condensed milk, I eat the pungent binagoongan, the sweet and salty pork stew's garlic and pepper flavours soaking into white rice. A chicken and salted egg empanada is comfort food to the hilt, its chewy pastry perfect to drag through a mouth-shockingly hot sauce left behind by the Bicol express.
As the lunch crowd swells, there's just time to order a super sweet halo halo, the Filipino shaved ice dessert layered in condensed milk, jelly and fruit. (I also nab the last empanada for takeaway as a fresh batch arrives.)
Three more Filipino cafes to try
Tita
Between lacy curtains, bright plastic tablecloths and counters of fresh-baked rolls and buns, Tita's classic Filipino breakfasts are best with icy sweet Manila lattes before licks of ube soft-serve. Fill up with a tapsilog's sweet-salty beef strips on garlicky rice topped with a fried egg.
4/359 Illawarra Road, Marrickville,
Taguan
The pull to visit Josemargo Flores and Vincent Baquiran's inner-city Filipino cafe is most definitely their traditional pork adobo, but there's also a lot to love about the batch brew and hand-crafted ceramic dog mugs by Filipino artist Bijin.
Descanso
Try Descanso's barkarda (sharing) boards, a smaller version of a boodle fight, with beef tapas, chicken tocino and pork longganisa sausages, or drop in weekends for crispy pork dinuguan, with chilli-rich deep-fried pork sautéed in vinegar and lemongrass.
