As a creature of habit I am not keen on change, but change I did by staying in Makati rather than Ermita. Overall the change was an abject failure, with the exception of me discovering Filing Station Bar and Cafe.
This rather strange place, which is modeled on a 1950’s American style diner is located on Burgos Street, Manila, formerly at least the place to party in the capital.
What the Burgos Street?
Much like Pub Street in Phnom Penh and indeed Ermita Burgos Street was the place for girly bars, entertaining bars, midget bars and of course freelancers selling their wares. Seemingly it was decimated by Covid-19 and nowadays looks a mere shell of itself.
Many bars such as Ringside, which offered midget boxing are no longer there and the bars that are left are not much cop. There are also an amazingly huge amount of ladies and transsexual ladies looking to give massages, who at times can get a little aggressive too.
Formerly Burgos Street was a great place for bar crawls during the glory days of GNT, but nowadays it quite honestly just feels seedy and is best just avoided.
The exception to this is Filing Station Bar and Cafe
What is Filing Station Bar and Cafe
Modeled on a 1950’s American style diner, it has old cars and lots of crap to take pictures with on the ground floor, but you are led upstairs to the actual restaurant.
Again you are greeted to (mostly) 1950’s style artifacts, with some outliers like Darth Vader, as well as British style phone box. The 1950’s theme continues with the seating, as well as the uniforms, with the waitresses looking particularly cute in their attire.
Filing Station Address;
5012 P Burgos,
Brgy Poblacion,
Makati,
1210 Metro Manila
Republic of The Philippines
Filing Station Bar and Cafe Menu
The menu as one might expect is pretty much American with emphasis on breakfast, burgers, wings, hot dogs and pizza. And having visited 3 times in 1.5 days I duly got to try quite a lot of it.
Burger wise I had their classic, which comes with cheese and is pretty damned big. This gets a lot of attention from burger lovers within the city and quite rightly so as it was very good. What though blew my mind were actually two other burger dishes. Firstly they serve a burger with Eggs Benedict, or rather an Eggs Benedict Burger. This was not only an awesome combination (with cheese added) but they took me ordering it rare very seriously!
The second burger sensation that we had was a cheeseburger pizza, now this is hardly a new invention, but the way that they added a small burger to each slice made it without doubt the best cheeseburger pizza I have ever had. Therefore I feel this makes it the best cheeseburger pizza in Manila!
BUT, these were not the best things that I had here, with that honour going to the almost $7 milkshake. I took the cookies and cream version of this, with them essentially giving enough for two shakes, with the excess coming in the shaker they provide. Now I know that this is a classic marketing technique, but heck I do not care, it made me happy. I also had a root beer float here.
And they are open 24 hours and serve booze from a rich cocktail list. This of course meant that I had to try the Long Island Iced Tea, which was impressive. Was it as impressive as my fusion gravy and rum combo? That is indeed up for debate.
Overall though I have to say that it does offer not just the best burgers in Manila, but perhaps the best ambience of any restaurant in the capital. I may well keep staying in Ermita, but Filing Station Bar and Cafe is now on my to do list.