Started by two friends who wanted to open a restaurant serving food inspired by the Philippines,…read morethe Manila Grille is located in Deerfield Plaza, between downtown Myrtle Beach and Murrells Inlet. They are only open from 2 - 8 pm on Wed - Sat, so my wife and I made it a point to go there around 3 on a Thursday. We were the only customers during that time, and got to speak at length with Mike, the co-owner. We really enjoyed it, though their pricing could be altered to be more consistent.
The plaza and surrounding area isn't much to look at, and the Grille is not visible from the road. One really has to make an effort to get here. We really liked how the inside was decorated, with a mishmash of Filipino culture on one side (including a pretty good mural of Manny Pacquaio) and a large nature scene (painted by Mike) that gets added to with cinema characters when he gets inspired (examples being Chunk from the Goonies, Sebastian from the Little Mermaid, and my favorite: Frank Dux from Bloodsport). There is even an official arm wrestling setup at one of the dining tables, inspired by the movie 'Over the Top'.
Drinks are strictly cans (soda for $2) and bottles. The menu is very focused, nothing too complicated, and very tasty. They were out of the wings and burger that afternoon, but we were here for the Filipino entrees so there were no issues.
Lumpia Meal ($13.99) - comes with your choice of three lumpia and rice. What's a little disheartening is that the price of the meal is actually higher than if you ordered the items individually ($11.96 : lumpia and one scoop of rice are all $2.99 each) Regardless of the reason, that's not a consumer friendly thing at all. I really liked the variety of the lumpia, which had been fried very well (crunchiness is always good). The gyro was different, with the side of tzatziki sauce adding a lot of flavor. My favorite was the TNA (Taters and Adobo), the mix worked really well. What I thought would work well (the bulgogi mac n cheese) was OK, probably because there wasn't much filling or flavor.
Chicken Adobo Meal ($13.99) - no pork adobo today, so got the chicken. It was OK, decent flavor, but small amounts of chicken breast. We added a pork skewer for $2.99. It had been glazed with banana ketchup and grilled over an open flame.
Street BBQ Skewers ($13.99) - liked the pork skewers, so got three more in a meal. It has the same addition problem (individually priced, it adds up to $11.96, less than the meal). The meat pieces on these seemed even smaller, and some of the cuts were grisly.
Mike did suggest I get the small fruit salad for dessert ($1.49) and it was good. Reminded me of halo halo, except smaller and without the beans.
Lumpia is definitely the thing to get here.