Bongbong's Manila Kanteen
Filipino restaurant · St Giles ·
Filipino restaurant with adobo chicken, cauliflower, and satay
Filipino restaurant with adobo chicken, cauliflower, and satay
"Seven Dials Market, Covent Garden’s cavernous food hall, feels like a no-expense-spared relic from before the pandemic. But there’s still plenty of good food to be found here, and the best is Bongbong’s Manila Kanteen, run by the former Kerb stars. Stop by at lunch and dinner for fragrant lechon over rice and salad, adobo-glazed chicken wings and crispy pata pancakes with meltingly tender pork hock to share." - Emma Hughes
"Will visiting this spot in Seven Dials help you understand how staff at the Department of Health spent nearly £50,000 on this Filipino-inspired takeaway? It might just. After closing their Hackney location, Bong Bong’s have opened a new restaurant on the top floor of Kerb at Seven Dials, and they’re serving some pretty tasty stuff. From a lunchtime satay curry that’s singlehandedly convinced us of the virtues of pineapple in savoury food, to adobo glazed cauliflower we could eat like M&Ms, and the biggest bowl of prawn crackers we’ve ever come across, this is a very solid lunch option in the area." - Rianne Shlebak
"A small, Filipino-inspired restaurant on Hackney Road that opened almost exactly a year earlier after its owners, Lee Johnson and Sinead Campbell, won investment on BBC Two’s Million Pound Menu. During the first COVID-19 wave the venue pivoted from restaurant service to private catering (April–June) to stay afloat, helping pay bills and support suppliers, but despite significant orders it later announced permanent closure because of the ongoing impact of lockdowns. Government spending on hot food for staff became a notable story when the Department of Health and Social Care recorded £47,528 spent on takeaways/catering in March and April (nine orders totalling £43,348 in April and one order of £4,179 in March); ministers defended the purchases as necessary to feed long-shifted civil servants, NHS staff, military personnel and contractors while other catering options were unavailable. The owners, who previously ran the street-food business BBQ Dreamz, plan to wait out the winter and relaunch their Honey Boo Boo food truck after a successful crowdfunding campaign, and some commentators noted that one investor’s marriage to a Conservative councillor may help explain the government’s patronage." - Adam Coghlan
"The street-food duo’s first brick-and-mortar on Hackney Road serves large, pleasing bowls and crowd-friendly plates — aubergine kare kare and pata, a feisty chilled noodle, and a whole roasted tilapia worth the effort to dismantle — followed by hot, crisp banana-and-cinnamon spring rolls with a generous scoop of exceptionally rich vanilla ice cream. The place trades polish for warmth: décor verges on "totally bonkers," the vibe is childlike and slightly chaotic but confident, and it feels like a warm-hearted, get-stuck-in kind of joint that reviewers happily plan to revisit with family and friends." - George Reynolds
Thomas
East London G.
Kahmen
May C.
Jovim L.
Carl T.
Mariella-ella
Manny B.