Manila Garden

Not that that’s something I do on a regular basis. A healthy understanding of the law of averages and a not-so-healthy pessimistic bent have made me not much of a gambler, and that extends to restaurants. But the boss, he’s much more of an optimist — especially when it’s not his stomach that’s at stake. And so, leafing through the phone book one day, he found his curiosity piqued by Manila Garden, and promptly added it to the list.

I recruited a courageous co-worker for the task. While I like to review restaurants fresh — on a first visit and without any preconceived notions — I usually have some idea of a restaurant’s style and what’s on the menu. We could find almost nothing online about Manila Garden and knew no one who had been there, so our only assumption was that it offered basic Filipino food. And so it was with much trepidation that we made our way to the vicinity of Flamingo and Sandhill roads.

And found a gem of a neighborhood restaurant.

Manila Garden was extremely quiet on the evening we visited; I think we were the only customers in the place. But a large stage area, plenty of space in this strip shopping center and posted signs advertising entertainment and referring to a dress code let us know that this joint jumps later in the evening, especially on weekends.

I’ve noticed over the years that most of the Filipino restaurants in Las Vegas are of the steam-table variety, and indeed Manila Garden has a surprisingly large buffet setup. But it wasn’t in use during our visit; we ordered from a menu, pretty much sticking with Filipino classics, since neither of us is deeply familiar with the cuisine.

And so of course one of our starters would have to be lumpia, beloved of Filipino ex-pats everywhere. This version, dubbed Filipino Shanghai ($6.95), consisted of lots of tightly wrapped little rolls filled with meat and fried until crisp. They were positively addictive, even to someone like me who doesn’t eat a lot of fried food, and served in an attractive pedestal dish with a cup of a light sweet-sour sauce.

Our other starter was Tokwa’t Baboy ($7.95), which also was partially fried but very different from the lumpia. For this dish, cubes of tofu had been fried until the exteriors were crisp, then tossed with pork in a characteristic sauce that combined vinegar and soy sauce with a bright infusion of chili.

If there’s a defacto national dish of the Philippines, one camp insists that it would be adobo, although another faction would vote for pancit. As for us, we decided to split the difference and go with both.

The chicken adobo ($8.95) was excellent, the chunks of bone-in meat cooked in a soy-sauce-and-vinegar-flavored liquid with lots of garlic bits, then broiled until the skin was somewhat crisp and everything sweetly caramelized. As we merrily filled our plates with the chicken pieces and white rice, it was easy to understand this dish’s popularity.

Which is not to slight the pancit, which always reminds me of Pad Thai, the national dish of Thailand, which just goes to show the immense appeal of noodle dishes. This particular pancit was Pancit Palubok ($7.95), thin rice noodles in a thinner shrimp-based sauce, with wedges of hard-cooked egg, whole shrimp and chicharron — cracklins to you and me. The textural contrasts were very pleasing; I thought the taint of shrimp sauce a little too strong, but my friend liked it well enough to take home the leftovers.

Because there certainly were leftovers; Manila Garden may offer bargain prices, but it also offers servings fit for a longshoreman, Filipino or not.

Service throughout was very good, and the simple, streamlined decor had just the right feel for this hype-free zone. Manila Garden, as it turned out, was one lucky gamble.

Which is something I’ll remember the next time I pass a slot machine.

Las Vegas Review-Journal reviews are done anonymously at Review-Journal expense. Contact Heidi Knapp Rinella at 383-0474 or e-mail her at hrinella@ reviewjournal.com.