It's been ages since I last visited this place. This was my hangout place when I used to live at Stuyvesant Town. Grill 21 serves authentic Filipino comfort food. We came here for Sunday lunch with my friend. Since early July, summer weather was pleasant, so we decided to eat al fresco. We started with 20 pieces of freshly cooked Lumpia Shanghai with a cold bottle of San Miguel beer, pale pilsner. For my main, I chose longsilog, which is short for longganisa (Filipino sausage), fried rice topped with a sunny-side-up egg with balsamic vinaigrette dipping. While my friend chose smoked mackerel with garlic rice. This place serves delicious food, with decent portions and prices. This place is a must-try when you are near the Kips Bay Area. read more

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Overall rating: 4.2 Paid: $26 Sigh, I wanted to like this place so much. The environment was a tad cramped and there was 1 waitress given the small place. My friend had the pork barbecue and I had the chicken adobe. The food was okay but it didn't fully remind me of home. I also thought the place was unnecessarily expensive. Understood the location but I mean it wasn't anything special. read more

Grill 21 - Filipino Near Me - New York, New York

My wife loves the Filipino food here! The neighborhood used to have a bit more Filipino cuisine, but this restaurant has always been good to great and filled the void left at the end of the late '90s. All the regular dishes you would expect are served with pancit bihon, bulalo, pork belly, and lumpiang shangai being the best when we need take out and we don't want to make these dishes at home. They are just like my relatives make and they are great chefs! There are some dishes that are more mild for first timers at Grill 21. We prefer take out and the staff is always diligent and courteous. read more

Every time I work late in the office, I crave Filipino food and I order from here. (I'm Filipino) I've tried the crispy pata, chicken skin, grilled liempo (pork), and lechon kawali. The kawali is pretty meaty and wish it was more deep fried and golden brown. But everything else has been pretty authentic, especially the sauces. Reliable and happy to support--you should too. Lovely overall. read more

Grill 21 - Lechon Kawali Grille Pork Belly chicken skin - Filipino Near Me - New York, New York

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Disgusting the minute I open the order delivery the soup has a bubbles on it n it looks like have worms on it when I tasted it I immediately throw up , the fist was not cook at all or under cook when I spoke to the manager KAREN " she's rude and I've explained to her nicely but her attitude was smell worst than the fish n soup Never again I've spend $45 dollars n waisted my money for not even getting a credit Don't go there ! U can't trust the ingredients they food on there food ! They don't have quality certification read more

Grill 21 - Fish over rice ( mackerel ? - Filipino Near Me - New York, New York

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This place is solid for good Filipino food but you'll spend a lot of money if you want to try things and also get full. Here's some tips: Don't bother with the garlic rice. There's not enough garlic flavor in it to give that kick and it just taste like white rice anyways. Get the BBQ pork stick over the chicken. There's more flavor. Also, get one regardless along with your meal because the portions are small here. If you get the palabok ask for extra lemon because they only give one wedge. They give a lot of shrimp in the dish which is a plus. But the overall portion is small and needs more flavor. $20 small portion. If you dine in with a friend get a bunch of things to try but know that the bill will high. Get the lechon kawali in your platter meal if you order that. You'll get your moneys worth. Cons: Of course, the price. An order of lumpia Shanghai is around $13. It doesn't even come with 12 pieces so you're paying over $1 for one small lumpia! The vinegar that they serve with the food is very mild. It's missing the vinegar punch to cut the fat. Garlic rice lacks garlic flavor. If you're not worrying about price then this place is a great time. I would say if you want to try some of the dishes or if you're a Filipino craving the flavors, plan on spending about $100+ read more

Grill 21 - Pancit Palabok $20 - Filipino Near Me - New York, New York

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did NOT disappoint. the restaurant is unassuming but everything packed a punch. no need to get the garlic rice. get the hot calamansi juice, laing, and lechon. sisig was pretty good too. we got the pancit palabok as well though it was overpowered by the flavors of the other dishes. it actually tasted better as leftovers! it's not as affordable as i expected it to be. to be fair, we did have leftovers. there was also a bit of a wait before our entree arrived. it seems like it's a small staff handling all of the operations. try to come at odd hours because the restaurant is quite small and can't accommodate many. read more

Grill 21 - Sizzling Sisig - Filipino Near Me - New York, New York

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Checked out Grill 21 (Cute lil hole in the wall and welcoming service!!) for some authentic Filipino comfort food and it did not disappoint! The service was super friendly and attentive, and the portions were generous. perfect for sharing. The kare-kare, daing na bangus, and ginataang sitaw were all delicious! Rich, flavorful, and cooked just right. The only dish that didn't quite hit for me was the beef sinigang :( the broth was nice and tangy, but the beef wasn't as tender as I'd hoped and a bit rubbery. Other than that, everything else was yummy. I'll definitely be back to try more dishes! read more

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I had a wonderful breakfast of bangus, garlic rice, eggs, and tomatoes. I ordered extra tomatoes. The vinegar they gave was a yummy addition. The bangus was soooo good. Everything was but that fish is seasoned perfectly. So so yummy, all of it. Wonderful experience. The restaurant has a warm homey feeling. read more

Grill 21 - Filipino Near Me - New York, New York

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Long wait for takeout but great food. Not much filipino food in the area so this is a great local spot to try.

Got takeout from here and thought the food was only ok. I got a lechon kawali and BBQ chicken combo. The chicken was good, but the lechon was kind of disappointing. The skin wasn't very crispy and the lechon was overly oily. Prices are also steep for Filipino food. read more

Grill 21 - Filipino Near Me - New York, New York

I give this a 3.5-4. Service is friendly, but there's not many tables inside so I recommend reservations. My Filipino friend said the food was good, so I trust her. I personally felt like I've had better Filipino elsewhere, even in the city, but unfortunately those places didn't survive. I liked the sisig but their garlic rice (which has a surcharge) wasn't as good as I expected. It lacked the strong sautéed garlic flavor I so badly craved. Their halo halo was just okay in my opinion. I personally felt like the ice was too chunky and the overall flavors felt a bit one note, even though they had a lot of ingredients in it. read more

Grill 21 - Special Halo Halo - Filipino Near Me - New York, New York

Friendly customer service and the Filipino food very similar the way my parents cooked which is a huge compliment!

Staff was very friendly when I walked in. Full of patron who spoke Tagalog. The breakfast and lunch specials were great in terms of pricing and options. Wish there were more affordable Filipino spots like this in the city. On TV was a Filipino game show. Very homey inside. I ordered longsilog (Filipino sausage with egg and garlic rice $13.25) and bistek (Asian beef steak, thinly sliced and cooked in soy sauce and lemon with caramelized onions $12.25, garlic rice was $1 for upgrade). Would highly recommend!! read more

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Amazing! I've tried so many Filipino places and sadly most are fusions. This place is the closest thing to homemade traditional Filipino food I've had away from home. Just like my moms! It's small and very mom & pop vibes. She's read more

I came in on my lunch break and the waitress took my order along with a group of people. They already got served their food and I'm still waiting. I waited 45 minutes and they keep on saying that it's coming out. The other group are almost done eating their food. I wasted my time and left without eating. Last time!!!!! They don't deserve not even one star!!!!! read more

Came here for dinner with my colleagues on a Tuesday night. We arrived early for opening so we were able to get a table immediately. Food as usual was superb especially their CANSI! The only thing we did not like is the service. Server on duty at the time appeared to be on a bad mood and made us not feel welcome at all. read more

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A quaint spot serving cozy Filipino food! Make sure to make reservations online since it can get packed easily. There is a very cheap daily lunch special for around $12! You can substitute white rice for garlic rice for $0.50. The pork collar bbq skewers were very tender and paired perfectly with rice. The chicken adobo was very tender, but a bit too salty. read more

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This place never struggles for business. The spot locals choose for special occasions. This restaurant excels at heritage cooking. Workers - outstanding - amiable and watchful. Delicious dishes and responsive employees. Coming back soon! read more

One of the very few Filipino restaurants in town that has Dinuguan. Ordered Dinuguan and Sisig. Dinuguan is descent, wish it had more of the vinegar flavor in it. Sisig was heavenly, the crunchy pig ears + the chewy liver, definitely a must try! read more

Grill 21 - Sizzling Sisig - Filipino Near Me - New York, New York

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Came for lunch on a Sunday and had a great meal. I tried: + Lumpiang Shanghai + Lechon Kawali + Chicken adobo + Pancit Palabok + Halo halo with ube ice cream My favorite items were the lumpia and the halo halo. Lechon was great, too. They were out of sisig, so will have to return! read more

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Went here on a Monday 30 mins after opening and wasn't busy yet. The place is small and cozy. My friend recommended to go here since she never had Filipino food. We were quickly seated and i had to narrow the options since my friend can only have seafood. I wanted to get sinigang Bangus since she never had before and unfortunately they didn't have. So i asked about different dishes with Bangus and they only had fried. Which was still good but all the other Bangus dishes were not available. We ended getting lumpia Shanghai and sariwa to share and it was a good size. We also wanted cassava for dessert and they didn't have also. So we ended getting buko pandan. I was a little disappointed that they didn't have some Items on the menu especially traveling over an hour to try this place l. read more

Grill 21 - Lumpiang Sariwa Ig: feed_ally - Filipino Near Me - New York, New York

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I've lived in SF, Daly City, Los Angeles, and now in NY. The Tocino/Tocilog is my favorite dish and I use it as a baseline to determine how good the restaurant is. Grill 21 has the BEST tocino!! They give you solid pieces and they remove almost all of the fatty parts. They char the edges which is nice. And they give you a generous amount (seems like more when you eat inside the restaurant). It's been pretty consistent. Makes my mouth water just thinking about it. The sisig is pretty good as well as the halo halo. Friendly service. This place is worth it! read more

Grill 21 - Tocino - Filipino Near Me - New York, New York

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This restaurant is great! Their sisig is to die for! Every time I eat here I HAVE to get the sisig. Their other dishes are excellent as well, like the pork belly. The service is really good with a cozy atmosphere. read more

Grill 21 - Filipino Near Me - New York, New York

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My all time favorite filipino cuisine location *sisig: this is a classic and a must! so so good and it was not too oily like more sisig dishes that I have had before. Every time I come here, I always order sisig *halo halo: another classic dessert that is very common and their portions were very generous. It was so tasty and till this day I still think about it. *my tips: reservations are available but you must call in to order and they even provide catering as well! *my experience: the staff is so nice and it is a small place. Every time I come in every so often the waiter even remembers me. He would greet me in the nicest way and I honestly can't go to any other place besides this one. would I go again? HECK YES read more

Grill 21 - Sisig - Filipino Near Me - New York, New York

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Delivery was very slow, very little chicken in the chicken curry lunch special, asked for utensils, none were included

So delicious! Where I live there's no pinoy restaurants, so when i was in the city i had to stop by. A really cute small restaurant with all the filipino classics including filipino breakfast! The BBQ skewers were a delicious classic. Staff was super friendly too! I will definitely be going back read more

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Food: 4/5 Classic, small and inconveniently located restaurant but totally worth the visit! I was lucky my friends invited me to dine here and I would come back in a heartbeat. Ordered sisig, palabok, tortang talong, laing, a soup and a dessert. The sisig (4/5) was great. This has been my addiction lately and it was delivered perfectly crispy and fatty. The palabok (3/5) was decent but it's not my preferred dish. The noodles were cooked well and delivered with some crunch. The tortang talong (4/5) was juicy, spongey and mouthwatering. It was my first time having this dish and the best way I can describe it is... a delicious eggplant omelet! The soup (3/5) was good but I think we ordered too much food. It sort of reminded me of Chinese daikon soup but packed with cabbage and cubes of meat. The dessert (4/5) consisted of shaved ice and ice cream -the best of both worlds. Very sweet and a perfect snack for the summer. The food reminded me of "moms food" if that makes sense. I've never been to the Philippines but I think this place would come close to "home style moms food". Service: 4/5 Service was great! I mean.. my friends are from the Philippines and speak the native language. Why wouldn't service be great? Ambiance: 2.5/5 Very small establishment with lots of colors. I personally thought the location was inconvenient. It's far from the train and in the middle of nowhere.. BUT, I'd come back without a doubt. read more

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I came in for dinner last night and was blown away! I live nearby and I'm pretty sure I will be a regular here. I had ordered a lunch special a few months ago and wasn't that impressed. Good amount of food for my dollar, but I found my pork belly to be a bit dry. A lady who lives in my building expressed similar feelings about her lunch special. Anyway, came back for dinner and the food was on a whole different level. Service was very friendly. We didn't have too many questions about the menu but another table did and he answered everything expertly. He asked us if there were any allergies even before I was going to tell him of a shrimp allergy. We started with the Lumpiang Shanghai for an appetizer and it tasted just like the Lumpia I used to eat as a kid at backyard BBQs in Hawaii. I ordered the Kare-kare for my main (despite reading older reviews saying the sauce was too watery) and was impressed. I asked for shrimp paste on the side so my dining buddy could try mine before I added it. He ordered another beef dish, the Cansi, and liked mine better. I liked his as well. The Cansi was not what I was expecting for a bone marrow dish, but it was very good. The only way really I had been served bone marrow before was straight from the bone. The server knew we were going to share so bought us two small bowls to make life easy for us! We saved room for dessert and ordered Turon and mango ice cream. The Turon was beautiful but not my favorite dessert. I'm not much of a dessert person. The mango ice cream on the other hand almost converted me to a dessert person. 10/10 would recommend. 4 stars because lunch was lacking but dinner was amazing. If I do ever do lunch again, I'll probably dine in to see if that improves my experience. Will be back read more

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This is a cute little dive of a hidden gem in Stuy-Town that everyone should know about. It's quite small so I wouldn't recommend someone advertise it as wheelchair accessible but all in all the little place gets the job done. I loved the pork belly and beef platter - brunch special is only $8.95!! Great pieces of tender meat and it comes with this amazing tangy vinegar sauce with a coconut rice! Yummy yummy. Also ordered the egg roll and wasn't impressed with that so I'm gonna skip that next time. Everything else was super delicious!! read more

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A must go for their lunch special. It's an amazing deal and I was stuffed After. I recommend adding an egg because it paired so well with the meat and rice. I would definitely go again to try something new. You can also call in advance if you're in a rush and they will get your food started for you!! read more

Grill 21 - Grilled Pork Belly LS - Filipino Near Me - New York, New York

Every few months my besties and I get cravings for filipino food so we are on a mission to find as many good filipino restaurants in this city. Grill 21 was on our list so we organized a meet up with the 3 of us on a Friday evening. Grill 21 opens up at 5pm sharp. The staff seats you right away. This restaurant is small. I saw this mentioned on various reviews but when you get in there you realize OH this really is small. I think there are a total of about 4 tables so if you do not want to wait for a table, be sure to get there at exactly 5pm. Though this place is small, my friends and I were comfortable. I didn't feel smushed and I had plenty of room to enjoy my meal. Our server was super sweet and helpful. My friends ordered combo dishes and I ordered the Pancit Palabok. I've been on a palabok kick recently. I did enjoy it here but I wish it had a bit more sauce. The portion was huge but that's appropriate for the $17 price. The show stopper for me were the Lumpia Shanghai Appetizer. I could have honestly eaten the whole lumpia dish by myself as a meal. I really wish I ordered the garlic rice. It was cooked to perfection here. I had to stop myself from eating all of the rice from my friends. I'll be back for more lumpia, the garlic rice and the delicious San Miguel beer. read more

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My friend and I came here for Filipino Restaurant week. The food was good, service was very quick and reservations were strict. The specials was definitely a great deal there a lot of leftovers for the next day. It was $35 for 2 people which included a shared appetizer, 2 entrees and a dessert. In addition mt friend ordered pork sinigang. The pork sinigang was standard and cooked/prepared properly. The meat fell of the bone easily and tasted very tender plus the broth had a right amount of sour flavor. For the appetizer the lumpia Shanghai was standard, done appropriately. The entrees we ordered were BBQ chicken with garlic rice, the chicken was good. The kare kare was also good, but I have had better. The oxtail was very tender but the sauce was on the liquidity saide. The buko pandan was the best thing out of the dishes we had. It capped off any flaws detected from the entrees and appetizer. Would I return? Yes I would return it is pretty solid Filipino food when friends come to visit to NYC, but personally I am just so used to home cooked food so my standards for Filipino food is set very high. read more

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Lazy female server. Extremely dry and tough grilled fish -- definitely not fresh. Will never be back.

Can't by for lunch and ordered the pork adobo with garlic rice. The garlic rice was a disappointment. It was neither freshly fried not fragrant. Looks like it was prepared in bulk earlier and then placed bank in the rice steamer. The pork adobo was nice and fatty and tender. The gravy was the vinegary sweet adobo sauce you would expect. It needed something to cut through the Henry dish, maybe a fresh side salad or slaw. read more

Grill 21 - Filipino Near Me - New York, New York

I've heard of Grill 21 for a long time now and glad I finally got the chance to try. I'm from the Philippines and was showing a group how yummy our food is - I chose this place based on the reviews and pictures. This place did not disappoint!! Every dish felt home-cooked and made with love. I could tell the chefs knew what they were doing, especially because they got the garlic rice right. My favorites were the Grilled Pork Belly, Tortang Talong, and Crispy Pata (not pictured). I spoke to Bags for our reservation for 6 and he was so easy to talk to and coordinate with for our table. He and the waitress (I didn't get her name) served us really well, but the place is quite small so they were never really out of sight. -- FOOD -- Garlic rice and white rice - 10/10. The garlic rice was perfectly cooked and seasoned - not too salty but not bland. Jasmine rice was cooked perfectly. The best pairings for the yummy ulam (entrees)! Crispy Pata - 10/10. Oh my goodness if they have this available, ORDER IT. Perfect, salty, and crunchy, skin over tender and savory meat. Flawless and reminds me of home Tortang Talong - 10/10. Perfectly smoky and savory. Delicious!! Grilled Pork Belly - 10/10! Some of the best inihaw na baboy I've had. Must order Sizzling Sisig - 9/10. Solid sisig, but doesn't compare to mama fina's Nilagang Baka - 8.5/10. Amazingly tender and flavorful beef. Soup could've used more flavor but veggies were yummy Kaldereta - 8/10. Beef a bit tough, sauce not as tasty as I'd like but still good! read more

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Really good filipino breakfast. I love bangus with garlic rice and vinegar. There is not a lot of Filipino restaurants around but this place was very delicious. The workers were really nice and offered to work around their hours to deliver food to us on Thanksgiving. The service here is excellent as well as the food. One thing I can say is they need to expand the restaurant because there is limited seating. read more

Grill 21 - Filipino Near Me - New York, New York

I love Grill 21. I usually go and sit, but I had to do order and it was fast and fresh. Portions are the same and everything was delicious. Definitely have options if you can't eat there. read more

Came from out of state to visit my son in College . It was 91 degrees out and I wanted some pork belly so I chose this restaurant. The waitress was very friendly. The restaurant has only a few tables . My son picked the pork belly and BBQ chicken skewers with garlic rice , I immediately lost my appetite because the place was so hot no air conditioner therefore I did not order anything. They did have old fans on the wall . The place is very old . The food was ok . Not large portions . I wouldn't return . read more

Grill 21 - Pork belly garlic rice bbq chicken - Filipino Near Me - New York, New York

Food is very expensive, its not worth it. For a cup Of garlic rice and few pieces of meat they charge $25. read more