New York City / Filipino & Malaysian
Best Filipino & Malaysian
Restaurants in NYC
Kamayan from $20 a head to $135, the cheapest roti canai in the city, and one timed deal on the whole page.
One venue on this page publishes a timed deal — Laut’s weekday lunch. The rest is BYOB and cash.
- 18 verified rooms
- 1 timed deal, citywide
- kamayan $20–$135/head
- 3 are BYOB
The best Filipino and Malaysian restaurants in NYC right now are Ihawan in Woodside ($160 kamayan for eight — $20 a head, printed on the menu), Taste Good Malaysian in Elmhurst (8.9 from The Infatuation, cash only, BYOB, 198 items), West New Malaysia in Chinatown ($6.95 roti canai, the cheapest in the city), Tito Rad’s in Woodside ($11.95 pork-belly sisig, and the only room on the strip still serving at 10pm) and Naks in the East Village (an 18-course hands-only kamayan at $135). Both of these cuisines live in Queens, not Manhattan — nine of the twelve Filipino rooms here are in Woodside, Elmhurst or Sunnyside, and Manhattan is down to two restaurants after a wave of closures. And exactly one venue on this page publishes a timed deal. No happy hours. What you get instead is BYOB, cash, and prices that are honest to begin with.
The short version
- Best valueIhawan’s kamayan: $160 for eight off a banana leaf. That is $20 a head, on the printed menu.
- Cheapest plateSariling Atin — $5–$11 for up to three entrees and rice, at a steam table behind a grocery.
- Cheapest roti canaiWest New Malaysia at $6.95. The same thing is $11 at Laut.
- The only dealLaut’s weekday lunch, 11:30am–3:15pm: nasi lemak $22 instead of $30.
- Read the clockWoodside closes early. Renee’s 7pm, dark Tuesdays · Ihawan 8:30pm, dark Wednesdays.
At a glance
What it costs where anyone publishes a price, which rooms are cash only, and which kitchens shut at 7pm.
| Restaurant | Order this | When | Neighborhood | $ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ihawan | $160 kamayan for 8 | Closed Wed, shuts 8:30pm | Woodside | $$$ |
| Renee’s Kitchenette & Grill | Sizzling sisig | Closed Tue, shuts 7pm | Woodside | $$$ |
| Tito Rad’s Grill | $11.95 sisig | Daily 11am–10pm | Woodside | $$$ |
| Kalye Bistro | Bangus sisig · BYOB | Daily 11:30am–10pm | Woodside | $$$ |
| Kusina Pinoy Bistro | Kare-kare · karaoke | Hours unpublished | Woodside | $$$ |
| Dollar Hits | ~$1.50 skewers | Evenings | Woodside | $$$ |
| Sariling Atin | $5–$11 combos | Grocery hours — go early | Elmhurst | $$$ |
| Lahi | Sisig tacos · patio | Hours unpublished | Elmhurst | $$$ |
| Kora | Ube & leche flan doughnuts | Daily to ~4pm | Sunnyside | $$$ |
| Naks | $135 kamayan tasting | Tue–Sun 5–10pm | East Village | $$$ |
| Grill 21 | Tocilog at breakfast | Hours unverified | Gramercy | $$$ |
| The Buren | $5.25 ube latte | Daily 8am–5pm | Bushwick | $$$ |
| Laut | $22 nasi lemak at lunch | Mon–Fri 11:30am–3:15pm | Union Square | $$$ |
| West New Malaysia | $6.95 roti canai | Hours unpublished | Chinatown | $$$ |
| Nyonya | Cold Hainanese chicken | Daily, to 11pm Fri–Sat | Chinatown | $$$ |
| Kopitiam | $12 nasi lemak | Walk-ins only | Two Bridges | $$$ |
| Taste Good Malaysian | Kari laksa · BYOB | Daily 10:30am–9:45pm | Elmhurst | $$$ |
| Kelang | Hainanese chicken (dinner) | Two menus, two windows | Greenpoint | $$$ |
Map: where these 18 spots are
Two real clusters: Roosevelt Avenue and 64th Street in Woodside, and a three-address Malaysian walk in Manhattan Chinatown.
Pins are numbered to match the table above – tap any pin for the detail and directions.
Little Manila: the Woodside cluster
Six rooms across three corners, and the reason this is a crawl. See Sunnyside happy hours.
Ihawan
$160 feeds eight off a banana leaf. That is $20 a head, printed on the menu, with no special-order phone call and no negotiating. The full ladder is $55 for two, $110 for four, $125 for six, $160 for eight — and it makes every other kamayan in this city look like a markup. The name means grilling place, and the cooking is Kapampangan, the Philippines’ grill-and-richness region. Pork BBQ is $6 a stick, or $14 for the two-stick meal with rice; crispy pata $25; sizzling sisig $20, or $22 with an egg cracked over it. A 20% gratuity goes on parties of six or more, which is exactly the size that orders the platter. The honest caveat, and it kills a plan: it is closed Wednesdays and stops serving at 8:30pm. The 9pm kamayan does not exist here. Book it as an early dinner.
ihawan-ny.com · See our Queens happy hours
Renee’s Kitchenette & Grill
Open since 1992, which makes it one of the oldest Filipino kitchens in Woodside and the anchor of the strip. Their own site puts it better than we could: no pretension, just home-style Pampanga cooking. The Infatuation picks the sizzling sisig, the sinigang na baboy and the kare-kare. Kusina Pinoy Bistro is literally next door at 69-16 — two of the strip’s anchors on adjacent addresses, which is the single best thing about eating on this block. Two honest caveats. It closes at 7pm every day and does not open at all on Tuesdays — this is a daytime restaurant, whatever your dinner plans said. And its own menu publishes no prices, so you are ordering blind unless you ring first.
reneeskitchenette.com · See our Queens happy hours
Tito Rad’s Grill
Sizzling sisig at $11.95, made entirely from pork belly — no offcuts, no filler — finished with lemon and hot peppers, at the one Woodside Filipino kitchen still serving at 10pm seven nights a week. That last part is worth more than it sounds: Ihawan shuts at 8:30, Renee’s at 7. From its own published menu: oxtail kare-kare $14.95, crispy pata $13.95, lechon kawali $10.95. It sits on Queens Boulevard rather than Roosevelt Avenue, a few blocks off the main strip, and The Infatuation describes the back room as styled like the coolest tito’s house. The honest caveat, and it is a navigation problem: every guide including The Infatuation prints the address as 49-10 Queens Blvd. The restaurant’s own site says 49-12. Use 49-12.
titorads.com · See our Sunnyside happy hours
Kalye Bistro
BYOB, open 11:30am to 10pm every day, and the sisig is made with bangus — milkfish — instead of pork. On a happy-hour site, bring-your-own is the honest answer to a block with no drinks deals on it, and this is the closest thing Little Manila has. Crispy pata, crispy lumpia, palabok and halo-halo with ube ice cream are the other picks. Its real advantage is the address: it sits directly next door to Dollar Hits at 39-04 64th St, so you can work through a rack of $1.50 skewers and then sit down for a proper plate without crossing a street. It takes groups and private parties seriously. The honest caveat: it advertises a kamayan menu and publishes no price for it, and the menu page on its own site does not load. Call before you promise anyone a boodle fight.
kalye-bistro.com · See our BYOB restaurants in NYC
Kusina Pinoy Bistro
The party room on the strip — live music, karaoke and string lights — one door down from Renee’s at 69-14. Gothamist calls it a more modern approach to Filipino food and picks the kare-kare and the Bicol Express; the kitchen serves the shrimp paste for the kare-kare on the side so you season it to your own taste, which is a small thing that tells you a lot. HelpNewYork points at the calamares gigantes, the bulalo and the whole pompano. The honest caveat, and it is total: no website, no published hours, no published prices. Nothing. If you are bringing a group expecting karaoke, that is a phone call you make before you leave the house, not after you arrive.
See our best karaoke bars in NYC
Dollar Hits
More than twenty skewers off a street grill at roughly $1.50 apiece, which makes a full meal here under $15. It opened in 2019 as the LA chain’s first East Coast location and it is, straightforwardly, the cheapest way to eat well in Little Manila. Order isaw (pork intestine), kwek-kwek (battered quail eggs) and a sago’t gulaman to drink. It shares the corner of 64th and 39th with Kalye Bistro at 39-06 — the second node of the Woodside cluster, and the reason this is a crawl rather than a single stop. The honest caveat: the $1.50 comes from The Infatuation, not from the restaurant — there is no first-party menu anywhere online. Treat it as the ballpark. The BBQ grill format is an evening thing; go at night for the full spread.
See our best street food in NYC
Elmhurst, Sunnyside and the cheap end
Where the real value is. More in best cheap eats in NYC.
Sariling Atin
Five to eleven dollars buys one to three entrees plus rice or noodles at a cafeteria steam table in the back of a Filipino grocery store — and it is the cheapest real meal anywhere on this page. This is turo-turo: point at what you want, pay by the number of dishes, sit down in the designated dining area. Pork adobo, pancit, mung bean stew, lechon kawali. Filipino snacks are stacked at the checkout on the way out, which is how the bill grows. The honest caveat, and it is the whole strategy: turo-turo means you eat what is in the tray at the hour you walk in. Go early for the full spread. Late in the day the choice narrows to whatever is left, and there are no published hours to plan around.
See our best cheap eats in NYC
Lahi
It started as a Queens Night Market stall, and the signature is still a night-market idea: sisig tacos — crispy pork sisig and mayo in bite-sized taco bowls, which is either the point or the problem depending on your mood about that sort of thing. The arroz caldo with calamansi and the turon are the other picks. What makes it worth the trip is the large outdoor patio, which makes it the group option and the warm-weather option in Elmhurst, where almost nothing else has one. The honest caveat: its old website domain has lapsed and now redirects somewhere unrelated. Nothing suggests it has closed, but there is no first-party source for anything — ring (929) 296-0277 before you drive out.
See our best outdoor dining in NYC
Kora
Kimberly Camara started Kora out of her apartment in June 2020 and grew it into a Sunnyside storefront, and the flavours are the entire argument: ube custard, leche flan, coco pandan, halo-halo, kalamansi. Ube fried brioche and a malted milk chocolate sesame choux sit alongside the doughnuts. It opens around 7:30am and closes mid-afternoon, and it is a short hop on the 7 from the Woodside cluster — which makes it the natural morning end of a Filipino Queens day. The honest caveat: it sells out, the menu rotates seasonally, and no prices are published online. Go early, and do not build the plan around one specific doughnut.
fromkora.com · See our Sunnyside happy hours
What is left in Manhattan and Brooklyn
Two restaurants and a cafe, after a decade of closures. Pair with East Village happy hours.
Naks
Eighteen courses, eaten with your hands, $135 a head before tax, tip and drinks — in the East Village room that used to be Jeepney. Chef Eric Valdez, a veteran of the Unapologetic Foods group, grew up in metro Manila. Roughly twenty seats are given to the kamayan tasting, and there is a handwashing area, because they have thought about the logistics of what they are asking you to do. The local move, and it is the one worth knowing: there is a real à la carte option in the bar area, small plates around $20, which is the honest way into this kitchen if $135 is not the night you had in mind. Dinner Tue–Sun 5–10pm, brunch Sat–Sun 11:30am–2:30pm, closed Mondays. The honest caveat: $135 here against $20 a head at Ihawan is the widest price spread on this page, and both are called kamayan. Several listings still put Naks at 100 1st Ave — it is 201.
naks.nyc · See our best tasting menus in NYC
Grill 21
Order the tocilog — rice, eggs and tocino that The Infatuation calls fiery red, juicy and caramelized — and order it in the morning, because breakfast is what this kitchen does well. Chicken adobo and lechon kawali are the other picks. It matters more than it should, because after the closures of Mama Fina’s, Kabisera, Flip Sigi, Bilao and Tradisyon, this is one of only two Filipino restaurants left in Manhattan proper. Two honest caveats. The room is genuinely tiny — plan around that if there are more than three of you, and do not turn up at 8pm expecting a group dinner. And we could not verify its hours first-party, so ring (212) 473-5950.
thegrill21.com · See our Gramercy happy hours
The Buren
Brooklyn lost both its Filipino flagships and no guide has caught up. Purple Yam on Cortelyou Road — the only Filipino restaurant in the NYC Michelin Guide — closed in 2025 after fifteen years, and F.O.B. on Smith Street is permanently closed. What is left is this: a Bushwick cafe under the J at Kosciuszko, describing itself as Filipino-Mediterranean, running 8am to 5pm seven days. The ube latte is $5.25, the same price as a standard latte; drip coffee $2.75; rice platters cover pork adobo, beef tapa, longganisa and grilled chicken. The honest caveat, stated plainly: this is a coffee shop that cooks Filipino, not a Filipino restaurant, and it is shut by 5pm. It earns its place on this page because Brooklyn genuinely has nothing else — not because it replaces what closed.
theburenbkny.com · See our Bushwick happy hours
The best Malaysian in NYC
Six rooms, and the whole field is about a dozen. See best Asian restaurants in NYC.
Laut On now
Weekday lunch, 11:30am to 3:15pm, and the nasi lemak drops from $30 to $22. That is the only timed, published price break anywhere on this page — and it is a lunch menu, not a happy hour. Its own site says it was among the first Malaysian restaurants in New York to earn a Michelin star, and the kitchen runs Malaysian, Singaporean and Thai rather than strictly Malaysian. Dinner Mon–Thu 5–9:45pm, Fri to 10pm, Sat–Sun 1–10pm straight through with no separate lunch service. The honest caveat, and it is arithmetic: this is the expensive end by a distance. Roti canai is $11 here and $6.95 at West New Malaysia; Hainanese chicken rice is $32 here and $13.95 there. That is a 58% premium on the roti for walking twenty blocks north. Come at weekday lunch, or come knowing what you are paying for.
lautnyc.com · See our Union Square happy hours
West New Malaysia
Roti canai is $6.95 — the lowest verified price for it anywhere in New York, against $11 at Laut twenty blocks north. And the rest of the menu holds the line: nasi lemak $13.95, Hainanese chicken on rice $13.95, Penang asam laksa and choy kway teow $14.95, charcoal chicken satay with peanut gravy $11.95. The Infatuation notes entrees under $15 at lunch and picks the crispy fried prawns with salted eggs. It is the successor to the old New Malaysia in the Chinatown arcade, now at 69 Bayard. The honest caveat: it publishes prices but not hours, and MenuPages still shows a stale closed banner — the restaurant’s own live menu and an August 2026 Yelp listing both say otherwise, but ring (212) 964-0284 if you are going late.
Nyonya
When someone in New York says they are going for Malaysian, this is usually the room they mean, and it is still cash only. The Infatuation picks the cold Hainanese chicken, the okra and shrimp stir-fry and the asam laksa; roti canai, nasi lemak, Indian mee goreng, clay pot noodles and Malaysian spare ribs make up the rest of the house list. Hainanese chicken with rice lists at $12.95 and chow kueh teow at $15.95 on its delivery storefront. At 199 Grand it sits on the Chinatown–Little Italy seam, a three-block walk from West New Malaysia at 69 Bayard, which makes the two of them a single evening. Reported open to 10pm most nights and 11pm Fri–Sat. The honest caveat: cash only, and its own site publishes neither hours nor prices — do not rely on the delivery-app menu for what you will actually pay at the table.
ilovenyonya.com · See our Little Italy happy hours
Kopitiam
Nasi lemak $12, kaya butter toast $8.50, Milo french toast $15 — a proper kopitiam, run by a James Beard semifinalist cooking Nyonya food, the Chinese-Malay hybrid. The bigger plates are oyster omelette (oh chien) $18 and hand-pulled pan mee $19. The coffee is the other half of the point: kopi-O $6, kopi tarik $6.50, cham $7 — cham being the coffee-and-tea blend that most New Yorkers have never had. No reservations, walk-ins only, stated on its own site, so expect to queue. The honest caveat: its own website publishes two different sets of hours — the header says seven days 10am–10pm, the footer says Mon–Tue and Thu–Sun 11am–7pm with Wednesday closed. Check before you go, and assume the narrower one if you are travelling for it.
kopitiamnyc.com · See our Lower East Side happy hours
Taste Good Malaysian
A 198-item menu, roughly three decades in Elmhurst, cash only, and BYOB — which on a happy-hour site is the honest answer: bring your own beer. The Infatuation rates it 8.9 and calls it one of the best restaurants in the city, full stop, not one of the best Malaysian ones. Order the Singapore kari laksa, the Hainanese chicken, the sizzling bean curd with soy gravy, or the sizzling pork chops in marmite sauce, which is exactly as strange and as good as it sounds. Open daily 10:30am to 9:45pm. The honest caveat: cash only, no website, and no published prices anywhere — you are walking in on trust with bills in your pocket. Normal for this corner of Elmhurst, but know it before you sit down. The room is small and gets slammed; go off-peak with a small group.
See our BYOB restaurants in NYC
Kelang
Robert Sietsema called it New York’s most innovative Malaysian restaurant, and it only soft-opened the week of 8 December 2025. Same family as Hainan Chicken House at 4807 8th Ave in Sunset Park; this is their more ambitious second room. The menu goes well past the standards: rojak, bak kut teh, hokkien mee with roast pork and prawns, curry chicken pot pie, paratha with red lentil dhal. The honest caveat, and it will decide your booking: the kitchen runs two menus across two services. Hainanese chicken is dinner-only. Nasi lemak with curry chicken and fried anchovies is brunch-only, alongside a $3 chicken broth. Turn up at the wrong service and the dish you came for is not on the menu. It also opened without a liquor licence — confirm before you plan drinks around it.
kelangnyc.com · See our Greenpoint happy hours
Filipino and Malaysian food in NYC: FAQ
How much does kamayan cost in NYC?
Between $20 and $135 a head, and the gap is the widest on this page. The floor is Ihawan in Woodside, whose printed menu runs $55 for two, $110 for four, $125 for six and $160 for eight – $27.50 a head at the small end and $20 a head at eight, with no special-order phone call required. The ceiling is Naks in the East Village at $135 a head for an 18-course hands-only tasting menu, before tax, tip and drinks. Kalye Bistro in Woodside advertises a kamayan menu but publishes no price for it, so call before you promise anyone a boodle fight. Note that Ihawan adds 20% gratuity automatically to parties of six or more.
Do any Filipino or Malaysian restaurants in NYC have a happy hour?
Not one of the eighteen publishes a conventional happy hour with days and a time window. Exactly one publishes a timed price break of any kind: Laut near Union Square runs a weekday lunch menu from 11:30am to 3:15pm where the nasi lemak drops from $30 to $22. The nearest thing to a drinks deal is BYOB. Taste Good Malaysian in Elmhurst is BYOB and cash only, Kalye Bistro in Woodside is BYOB, and Kelang in Greenpoint opened in December 2025 without a liquor licence at all. On a happy-hour site, bring your own is the honest answer here.
Where is the best Filipino food in NYC?
Queens, and specifically Woodside – not Manhattan, whatever most guides imply. Nine of the twelve Filipino venues we verified are in Woodside, Elmhurst or Sunnyside. The Woodside cluster is three nodes, not one street: Renee’s Kitchenette at 69-14 Roosevelt Avenue and Kusina Pinoy Bistro at 69-16 are literally next door to each other, Dollar Hits at 39-04 64th Street and Kalye Bistro at 39-06 share a corner, and Ihawan sits at 40-06 70th Street. Manhattan is down to two restaurants – Naks and Grill 21 – after the closures of Jeepney, Maharlika, Mama Fina’s, Kabisera, Flip Sigi, Bilao and Tradisyon.
Which Filipino and Malaysian restaurants in NYC are cash only?
Cash is still the default at the older Malaysian rooms. Nyonya at 199 Grand Street and Taste Good Malaysian in Elmhurst are both cash only, and Malay Restaurant in Flushing is cash-only for orders under $20. The newer arrivals – Kelang in Greenpoint, Laut near Union Square and Kopitiam on East Broadway – all take cards. On the Filipino side, the venues that publish nothing at all about payment are Kusina Pinoy Bistro, Dollar Hits and Sariling Atin, so carry bills for the Woodside crawl regardless.
What time do Filipino restaurants in Woodside close?
Earlier than almost anywhere else in this city, and it is the single most useful fact on this page. Renee’s Kitchenette stops at 7pm every day and is closed Tuesdays. Ihawan stops at 8:30pm and is closed Wednesdays. Sariling Atin in Elmhurst runs on grocery-store hours, and the steam table thins out as the day goes. Only Tito Rad’s, open 11am to 10pm seven days, and Kalye Bistro, 11:30am to 10pm daily, are reliably late. Kora in Sunnyside is a bakery and closes around 4pm, and The Buren in Bushwick shuts at 5pm.
Last updated: August 2026. Prices and hours change – confirm with the venue before you go. Spot something out of date? Let us know.
