Manila Grille — Restaurant in Buena Park

Ummmmm, I'll pass............

Arriving here around 6:30pm on a Saturday after shopping at the nearby Home Depot, my eyes spied most of the hot trays near empty. What was left was pretty lackluster. Example-

Fried chicken wings - These looked more like fried lizard wings, as these were tiny. Quick! Someone call Lance Armstrong so Manila Grille can obtain some of "the clear" so these birds could bulk up before they're deepfried.

Pancit malabon - Seemed to be old & sitting out for a long while.

Dinuguan - Looked to be halfway decent.

We took around 5 mins checking out all of the food & to see what was in the fridge, but no staff was in sight. Probably getting ready to clean up, I suppose.

The layout of Manila Grille reminded me of the restaurants inside residential homes in the Philippines. In that regard, I'd say they are authentic. Dark, dingy, small. Like a dive bar w/o the benefit of booze to make everything seem better. 2 TV's were on w/ the KTLA evening news.

The parking lot next to it is just gravel, which can put wear on your tires. I recommend the parking lot next door w/ the taqueria, smoke shop & salons because it actually has actual parking spaces.

After glancing at the food options & the restaurant's environment, we decided we weren't feeling Manila Grille. We got back in the car & cruised down to Pinoy Grille which is a personal fave of mine.

Maybe I came on a wrong night, but I wasn't impressed w/ Manila Grille. It's too bad because I've been reading great reviews from my Yelp buddies about this place. Perhaps I'll give them another chance someday. Just not anytime...

Their food is the most authentic in the area, they have good variety most of the time and it’s affordable. I have one big problem though and it’s that I’ve gotten severe food poisoning FOUR TIMES from here (including twice from pork menudo, once from adobo and once from lumpia shanghai). I also often get tummy discomfort or feel slightly ill if I reheat leftovers from here so that tells me the cooks need to work on being more hygienic and/or they aren’t storing and discarding food properly. I honestly gave them the benefit of the doubt at first but I can’t deny their food was the culprit the whole time and honestly I’m grossed out. While most dishes are good enough I can’t get past the food safety issue.

The quality of service has also gone down and the young Hispanic woman who works the front can be rude and snappy. There’s also a young Filipina here that works at the register (she’s a little shorter) and she has attitude. Filipinos are known for their hospitality but you won’t...

It was our first time to try this place since we always go to Maria’s Kusina for their freshly cooked food. This place is the worst food is bad and if you really need to know more about real reviews, go to Yelp and you will find out that the owner Marianne is rude and gives poor customer service. The food is dry they don’t even provide half rice half noodles on their entrees like other Filipino restaurants. We didn’t even eat our food and when we asked for a Togo box, the server has to ask permission from the owner Marianne that old lady in the cashier told the sever do not give to big Togo box it will cost us $.25 cents!!! Having just paid $25 for our meal I was astounded by the rudeness of this lady. If you go to Yelp you will read all the bad reviews about her. And they even serve unfiltered actual tap water for their customers no wonder they have been sited by the heath department numerous 6 times....