Boonie's Filipino Restaurant — Restaurant in Lake View Township

The Good: Very clean, Great food, Warm vibe. Stylish wallet-friendly Filipino cuisine.

Gives me a Fulton Market Place feel but glad it’s in the neighborhood since La Isla is no longer open. Small menu which makes it easy to choose from.

What I ordered 😋 Lumpiang Shanghai (Appetizer) 🔥 which I highly recommend. I rarely eat pork but in my opinion, pork lumpia is the best tasting. It comes with a sweet sauce but I like to dip mine in sinamak (vinegar pepper sauce). The restaurant has it, just ask for it if you’d like to try it.

Paksiw na Bluefish (Entrèe) This comes with white rice. I put the fish on top of the rice and I also like to add sinamak to it but don’t go dumping sinamak on everything before tasting it.

Bibingka Royale (Dessert) this is a sticky rice dessert. The best way that I know how to describe it (maybe) it has a chewy, gummy texture. It’s sweet but not that sweet. Not sure if my description helps but I did my best.

I recommend all of it. If you’re funny about the desserts and want to take the safe route, order the ice cream. I was looking forward to ordering Halo Halo but that is on their lunch menu so I will definitely be back for lunch.

I wanted to order food to go but the waitress decided that our meal was over and handed us the check 👀 I only have one picture because my experience became a distraction.

The Bad: The waitress did not introduce herself and there was no greeting. Her fist words were: Did you want to order a drink while you wait for your friend? 🚩 Me: I’m not sure what these drinks are so I’m not sure. So she quickly said what the drinks were but I heard mango and asked her about it. Is it juiced? She said, “It’s in a can.” 🚩🚩 I felt like I was bothering her so I just ordered a water and lumpia while I waited for my client/friend to arrive. When another waitress brought the lumpia out, I asked her about the mango drink and she said it was a nectar. When my client walked in the waitress once again did not say hello. She asked if we were ready to order yet.🚩 🚩🚩I was so distraught at this point. I thought maybe the waitress was upset or depressed about something but then they sat a couple next to us and she was very kind, said hello, explained what she was doing and what the dishes were and that’s when I knew that she was intentionally rude to us. 🚩🚩🚩🚩 I tried to ignore it and talked about how good the food was with my client but then she brought us the check and two small pieces of fruit which I have no idea what it was (delicious) while I was still eating my dessert. I wanted to order food to take home but she decided that our meal was over without asking.

I paid my bill and tipped her 20% cash tip. I then asked to speak with the manager. While I was waiting for the manager, the waitress asked in the rude tone if we needed something. I just answered no. The manager was very kind and let me know that the waitress is usually nice. And I said, “Yes, she was very nice to everyone else except us.” The manager was very apologetic and wanted to make things right but all I ask for is to be treated equally to other customers.

I hope they look back and listen on the cameras and put themselves in my shoes. I hope they listen to her tone and words when she spoke to other customers in comparison to us.

Everyone else was kind and pleasant. If you’re a minority, if you get the long brown haired female, ask for a different waitress so that you’re not focused on how you are being treated. Did she mistake me for someone else? I’m not sure what was...

Takeaway: Maybe the best Filipino spot in the city - terrific ambiance with some awesome, but a few disappointments as well

Context: Dined-in for dinner with a group of four. Not the most experienced with Filipino food, but have had it a dozen times or so

What I Got:

Sizzling Sisig (9/10) The best item on the menu - fatty, salty, savory pork (mostly belly I think) sauteed with egg and an array of sauces and spices I can only guess at. Just so, so delicious when eaten with rice. I could eat a whole meal of just this with the garlic rice. Insane!

Lumpiang Shanghai (7.5/10) If you've had lumpia or an egg / spring roll of this style before you know what it tastes like. It's solid and competent, but nothing special. Not really a knock against it, but just solid.

Pancit Canton with Bagnet (7/10) Relatively forgettable dish - like the lumpia it isn't anything special, but is competent. Ramen noodles are used instead of the more "traditional" vermicelli which is perhaps my main issue with it. Again - certainly good! Saucier and thicker than what I anticipated, but that's not a bad thing, just different.

Leimpo (8/10) The better of the two meat dishes - grilled pork belly with jufran and a mignonette-adjacent sauce on the side. Pork had a great cook (although I always prefer it with a bit more crisp / burnt to it) and the sauce was a great complement. This worked really well for me!

Bistek (6.5/10) Grilled beef short ribs with onions. Probably the most disappointing thing I had here. The beef just didn't taste like much - which was shocking considering how much flavor everything else I had here was. The cook was good and the onions offered a nice contrast to the strong meaty flavors of everything else we've had so far, but the complete lack of anything interesting with the short ribs was just unfortunate.

Adobong Baboy (9/10) Pork belly and sauces + spices in a sizzling pot. Was basically a re-run of the sisig, but in a bigger, sweeter form. Again - eating this with the garlic rice was heaven. Incredibly fatty and savory - just everything I want from a dish like this. Highly recommend!

Escabeche (7/10) The mahi-mahi had an interesting cook - even firmer and "meatier" than I would expect. The sweet and sour sauce and confit tomatoes that were paired with the fish were all delicious individually, but for some reason the dish as a whole just didn't quite work for me. I think the mahi-mahi didn't quite "absorb" enough of the sauce so it felt a bit plain.

Milky Milky Ice Cream (8/10) Brown sugar and rum ice cream. It was delicious as...

2 stars – A culinary cautionary tale in three tragic acts

Let’s just say the Bib Gourmand hype set the bar high—and Boonie’s didn’t even bring a ladder-Who on Earth handed out that award? Michelin, blink twice if you're in danger.

Let’s start with the only semi-bright spot: the Lumpiang Shanghai ($6). Crispy pork spring rolls with sweet chili sawsawan—actually tasty. But when your $6 appetizer is the high point of a $100 meal, you know you're sinking fast. That dipping sauce was the only thing that didn’t taste like a bad decision.

Next came the Sugpo ($24): a fancy name for four shrimp with hats bigger than their actual bodies. For $24, I expected something flavorful or at least filling. Instead, I got a science project. The flavors didn’t work, the portion was laughable, and the shrimp-to-head ratio was criminal.

And now, the true tragedy: Kare Kare ($70). Seventy. Dollars. For one big fatty short rib that looked like it had just come off a Viking funeral pyre. We received a sad trio of vegetables and no second helping of rice—which, by the way, they served before our appetizer. Why? Because logic clearly packed up and left this kitchen long ago. The meat was so fatty we considered sending it to an oil refinery.

Also, can someone explain the hour-long wait for a meal that should've taken 20 minutes and half a conscience to prepare? Starving and stuck with overpriced disappointment, we found ourselves chewing through overpriced sadness wondering how this place stays open in a city that practically overflows with amazing food.

Final verdict? Boonie’s somehow managed to fail both the “good food, bad service” and “bad food, good service” tropes. This place has neither. Service was apathetic at best, and the food—well, if flavor had a grave, this is where it’s buried.

Chicago diners deserve better. Michelin inspectors—what were you eating?...