Manila Village Cafe

Culled from: Drury, John. Dining in Chicago, New York: The John Day Company, 1931, pp. 181-182.

Note: The Newberry Library holds the personal papers of author John Drury.

MANILA VILLAGE CAFE, 837 North La Salle Street

Filipino cookery, a combination of Oriental, Spanish, and native edibles, is something new in Chicago and is fast winning the favor of Chicago friends of the Filipinos as well as lovers of foreign viands. Here, in this plain undecorated restaurant in the basement of the Filipino Community Center, these dishes from over the Pacific are prepared in a highly appetizing manner and in true native style. There is pansit, a sort of appetizer composed of ravioli, bits of meat, noodles and dried shrimps; adobo, an entree, which is spare ribs of pork, fried, steamed, and served in a transparent brown gravy with just a touch of garlic in it; and shrimps guisado, composed of shrimps and celery suffused with soy sauce; and Filipino cabbage and chop suey. And, as in Chinese and Japanese restaurants, you are supposed to eat plenty of rice from the bowl before you. Most of the boys from the surrounding Filipino colony eat here, as well as the local leaders of the race, including Pablo Katigbak, staff writer of the Chicago Daily Netus, There is another Fihpino restaurant around the block on the second floor at 642 North Clark Street, where the same native dishes are served. It is conducted by Pedro Abicilla, who is a student at the University of Chicago. Visitors are welcomed at both places.