Maharlika

Though it was a really busy trip, we were able to squeeze in trying a new restaurant that opened up around the corner from my sister's. On our last day, we had brunch at this "Filipino Moderno" restaurant, Maharlika:

For our departing meal from New York, it hit the spot.  We weren't familiar with Filipino food, but it seems we were enjoying high end production of traditional food. Annabelle got the Barrio Breakfast, which featured pandesal, a delicious sweet bread which came with guava jelly and macapuno jam. Josh got the ilog breakfast featuring garlic rice (sinangag) and egg (itlog) and garlicky sausage (longsilog-longganisa)--I loved the garlic rice. :

I got the Eggs Imelda which seemed like a twist on Eggs Florentine, but instead of spinach, there was taro root leaves laing as well as grilled prawns on the side.  It was delicious and the kamote home fries were perfect.  Also interesting was the banana sauce instead of ketchup.

Velina had the mango stuffed French Toast, which was as good as it looked:

Augie actually dozed through our meal but woke up at the end as pleased as if he had eaten it as well!

Great food and great company made for a perfect meal.