Mina's Kitchenette

Update: Came back for halo halo and somehow the ingredients were lacking..,No sweet banana . So just a heads up if you are ordering halo halo. Check first what's available for the day.

First review: I always comes here when am in the area. Why not? Humongous serving. Look at the halo halo... generous portion. Love their palabok and I always order chicken chicharon. Excellent service from Tita Mina and Tita Letty. No, we are not related. But us Filipinos uses honorifics to their elderlies.

Good authentic filipino food
Best caldereta in NYC this 2 nanay makes all of their dishes from scratch cooking them with the very authentic filipino sason.

Delicious!!!

Homestyle Filipino Food.

They just need labels explaining what the dishes are.

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 Little Manila.

I can't really speak to the authenticity of the food since it was my first time eating Filipino, but I have to say everything I tried was outstanding. On top of the food being amazing, service was super friendly. My top pick would be pineapple chicken. All the meats were super juicy and tender and perfect with white rice. Will definitely stop by again.