Mina's Kitchenette — Restaurant in New York

3.5 stars. Mina’s Kitchenette is part Asian grocery store and part Filipino restaurant. The restaurant feels very homey with lots of plants and fairy lights. They sell mostly Asian snacks, some baked items, condiments, sauces, canned food, and juices. It’s also a turo-turo (point-point) restaurant which is a very popular Filipino restaurant concept. It’s similar to buffet display service where you point to the food you want; they plate it for you, and you bring it to your table.

Here at Mina’s, you’ll find the usual Filipino dishes like Bulalo (pork shank soup), Kare Kare (ox tail stew), Dinuguan (pork blood stew), Kaldereta (tomato-based stew), Tinola (chicken soup), and Ginataan (coconut milk-based stew) just to name a few.

We went by this past weekend to check them out and got 2 combo meals. The combo meal consists of rice with your choice of two small entrées. We got the chicken BBQ, Laing, Dinuguan and the Kaldereta. And for dessert we got Halo-halo.

Our favorite was the Chicken BBQ. The meat was tender, and the sauce was both savory and sweet. The Dinuguan was also pretty good, but the sauce was somewhat watery. It was cooked well and there was no metallic taste from the pork blood. The beef in the Kaldereta was very fatty. Not sure if that was just bad luck or what. The Laing was okay. I wished it had more heat. Laing is usually a spicy dish, but this was not. And I think they used canned taro leaves for the ingredients because there was a slight chalky after taste. The Halo Halo was surprisingly very good. I wasn’t a fan of the two canned cherries that was placed on top, but otherwise thought it was a yummy dessert. They were not stingy with the toppings which included, two scoops of flan, ube ice cream, pieces of boiled taro, sago, coconut strips, and gulaman (agar).

The dishes over all were good and the portions were just right. I think for this neighborhood this is a good solid option to go to when looking for Filipino food. The staff is very friendly and welcoming, and prices are slightly lower than what you would find in Elmhurst’s...

PHILIPPINES 🇵🇭 Eat the World NYC/Queens Tribune review: Today for the Queens Tribune we head out to Queens Village, one of a few communities along Hillside and Jamaica Avenues that have seen recent settling by Filipinos. The concentration is nothing like that of Woodside, but a couple restaurants have sprung up recently to fill the demand of these folks and more that have moved out to Nassau County. One restaurant has such good food that people travel to it from all five boroughs, Long Island, and even New Jersey to place catering orders. ° This gem called Hi Luck Restaurant is indeed a stroke of good fortune. It appears similar to many other turo-turo type establishments, a range of foods cooked daily for customers to choose, but settle into a plate of most of their dishes and you will immediately notice a difference. Cousins Leticia and Mina oversee the daily operations and are a joy to spend time with, each customer always gets a warm greeting when coming inside whether it is their first...

My family and I had our first dinner at Mina’s Kitchen, and we absolutely loved everything about it. They offer a wonderful selection of authentic Filipino dishes, all prepared by Ate Mina and Ate Letty themselves. We tried the Lechon Belly, Bicol Express, Ginataang Kalabasa, Adobong Manok, Pork BBQ and Chicken BBQ—each one was fantastic! It brought back cherished memories of our lolo and lolas in the Philippines. And of course, we made room for dessert with the Halo-Halo and Turon, which were simply the best!

Also, they are selling some local filipino snack, they also accept catering for all occasions, just remember to call them ahead of time for them to prepare the order.

We can't wait to go back and try other dishes. Great food, wonderful people, and excellent customer service! I will definitely recommend this authentic filipino restaurant...