Amazing Grace

"The name might have changed, but the restaurant and bakeshop formerly known as Krystal’s still serves pastries baked onsite. The first thing you’ll want to order is the pandesal, which has a tendency to sell out fast because these are some of the best in Little Manila. Pandesal isn’t salty as one would guess from its Spanish name (“pan de sal” literally translates to “salt bread”) and is to the Philippines what sliced white bread is to the US: ubiquitous, basic, and ranging in quality from mass-produced to freshly baked at the local panaderia. Ask for it plain or ube, eat it straight or toasted, dunked in coffee or hot chocolate, filled with meat or left alone. A slight step up would be the pan de coco, which comes stuffed with grated coconut, and on the far end of the richness spectrum sits their Brazo de Mercedes (Arm of Our Lady of Mercy). The Brazo is a type of jelly roll where a custard of egg yolks is encased in a pillowy meringue." - paolo espanola

"A successor to neighborhood mainstay Krystal’s, Amazing Grace took over the same Little Manila space, offering a similar mix of Filipino standards that go from barbecued brochettes (the pig ear is splendidly chewy), to set lunch and dinner plates, to the omnibus breakfasts known as silogs. The one featuring smoked milkfish is a favorite, also including garlic rice, fried eggs, eggplant, and a fresh salsa of onions and tomatoes." - Robert Sietsema

"When Krystal’s Cafe closed in the autumn just before the pandemic, Mary Jane De Leon and Efren De Leon replaced it with Amazing Grace, boasting a far-ranging Filipino menu. Breakfasts featuring eggs, fish, and pork products are a focus, and so are skewers of Filipino barbecue. Other standards are also well-executed in a setting with a lunch counter ambiance, from oxtail kare-kare, to sizzling pork sisig, to seafood steamed, fried, stuffed, made into soup, or poached in coconut-milk." - Robert Sietsema, Eater Staff

"The name might have changed but the restaurant and bakeshop formerly known as Krystal’s still serves pastries worthy of the afterlife. With baking done onsite, the first thing you’ll want to get is the pandesal, which, being named as one of the best in Little Manila, has a tendency to sell out fast. Pandesal isn’t salty as one would guess from its Spanish name, and is to the Philippines what sliced white bread is to the US: ubiquitous, basic, and ranges in quality from the mass-produced to the freshly baked at the local panaderia. Ask for it plain or ube, eat it straight or toasted, dunked in coffee or hot chocolate, filled with meat or left alone. A slight step up would be the pan de coco, which comes stuffed with grated coconut, and on the far end of the richness spectrum sits their Brazo de Mercedes (“Arm of Our Lady of Mercy”). The Brazo is a type of jelly roll where a custard of egg yolks, once a byproduct of church construction that utilized the whites to hold the walls together, is encased in a pillowy meringue (I guess they didn’t use all the egg whites). photo credit: Eun Hee Kwon" - Paolo Española

"Successor to Krystal’s Cafe and Bakery, offering a broad-ranging menu of Filipino food including barbecue, stews, soups, baked goods, and all-day composite breakfasts with the suffix “-silogs.”" - Eater Staff