Kalye

Kalye is Tagalog for street, and Rob Mallari-D'Auria — a chef who is also a photographer — runs it as half restaurant, half gallery for Filipino and Filipino-American artists. Darna, the Filipina comic-book superheroine, watches over the room from a mural, and the calendar fills with jazz nights, live bands and Sunday karaoke. Yelp's Filipino rankings for the city now put it at the top.

The cooking is generous and familiar: crisp lumpia, lechon kawali, beef kare-kare, tapa and chicken inasal, all with garlic rice, plus a tuna kinilaw cured in vinegar. Finish with halo-halo crowned with ube ice cream. On boodle fight nights the whole meal is laid out on banana leaves down the table, to be eaten with your hands.