Casa Manila

December 24, 2017

Sizzling Chicken Sisig Fries

Super yummy! These fries were crispy and topped with delicious chicken sisig, pickled papaya slaw, garlic aioli and green onion. It was also featured on You Gotta Eat Here, so we had to try it!

Tomato garlic beef and Pancit Canton

Halo Halo

A must have! This Filipino dessert is fantastic and there's something fun in every bite!

January 28, 2017

Another restaurant on You've Gotta Eat Here and they do Winterlicious at lunch for $18! It sounds like a deal to me.

*Items in Red are what I would order again

Clockwise from the top: Beef and Vegetable soup, Chicken Spring Roll, Casa Manila Salad and Seafood Noodles.

The Beef & Vegetable soup was rather simple, but tasty. The chicken spring roll was crispy, savoury and sweet and sour. The Casa Manila Salad had pickled papaya slaw on a mix of greens, carrots, peppers, onions and tangerine with a light sesame dressing. The Seafood noodles were also really good and had a strong shrimp flavor. There was also a lot going on with the egg, squid rings, fish flakes and thin noodles that were perfect at absorbing the flavour from the sauce.

Milkfish and Crispy Pork Belly

The fish was pretty tasty and it was nice that it was mostly boneless. All the dishes came with garlic rice and vegetables (mostly green beans). The pork belly was simply lechon, which is delicious, but I found it a little too fatty for my liking. I'm also used to the Chinese version of roasted pork (siu yuk), which usually has a less fat (depending on the cut, but my preferance is usually leaner meat) and it's packed with flavour and a side of hoisin sauce. So, while this version was good, it just didn't really compare to what I usually get from a Chinese shop that sells siu mei (roasted meat).

Pork Bicol Express and Adobo Coconut Beef

These dishes were much better! The coconut ginger sauce nad shrimp paste were cooked with pork, eggplant and peppers and it was really flavourful and tasty. The Adobo coconut beef was really yummy with really tender beef and a fragrant coconut milk flavour.

Coconut Milk Stew and Banana Crepe

The banana crepe was pretty tasty with a slightly crispy outer shell and I thought the jackfruit was a nice touch. The coconut milk stew was a little strange (especially since it was a warm dessert) - I wasn't really a fan of the rice balls in the stew. It had a lot going on with the sweet potatoes, banana, jackfruit, glutinous rice balls and yam. 

Ube Cake

I saw this on the menu and asked them if I could get a slice of their ube cake instead of one of their set desserts. The staff were really accomodating and gave me a slice - the ube was this gorgeous purple colour - however flavour wise, it didn't really come out as strongly as I would have liked - but it's hard when it is purple yam which isn't a really strong flavour. The icing was really good and ube-flavoured!

Overall: Good Winterlicious meal here. The service was a little slower than usual since there were a few other big parties in the restaurant doing kamayan meals. 

November 1, 2016

After Sorento's, I was still craving dessert and I've really wanted to try the Halo Halo at Casa Manila for about 2 weeks (ever since another friend mentioned Filipino food). So here we are!

 Chicken Sisig fries

I saw this on "You Gotta Eat Here" and in the spirit of eating everything I've always wanted, my friend and I decided to split this and the halo halo and another dessert (we were being super overambitious for two Asian girls - but in our defense, we did eat EVERYTHING). 

The fries were really good! It was like Filipino Canadian poutine. I loved that they were on the hot plate, because it kept our fries warm when we got distracted by dessert. The flavours and textures of the Chicken sisig fries were great! You got savoury, tangy, sweet (from the onions) and crispy from the chicken and fries. Yum!

Halo Halo and Leche Flan

OMG the Halo Halo was everything I dreamed...but it was a lot bigger than I expected. 

The ube ice cream was amazing...the jelly stuff was "interesting" and it was all so sweet and yummy together that I just kept eating. 

The flan was really good too, but I think we should've just kept it at the Halo Halo for dessert (we were like comatose after our meal - considering we also had pasta dinner at Sorento's). 

Website: http://www.casamanila.ca/