Cusinera

Food 3.5
Ambiance n/​a
Service n/​a
Overall 3
Small place with few seats but food quite decent. For about $ 6.50, the combo meal is a great deal – one drink, a soup, a protein, a vegetable and garlic rice. Food is tasty but not cooked fresh.

Best place for Filipino breakfast! Best place for any filipino dish, really. I never have a problem at this place. They’re all nice and the food is really cheap. $ 6 for food, drink, soup/​broth for rice, and a filipino sweet plantain snack. You will not go wrong. I love their tapsilog, and all silogs, kare-​kare, and sinigang. Definitely the best.

I saw an episode of DDD which featured Filipino food and like most things they feature on that show, the food looked great. Since I’m a big fan of garlic, I figured garlic fried rice was probably the greatest thing on earth.
After seeing all the great reviews posted for Cusinera, I decided to check it out.
When I initially walked in, I got my hopes up high since the «ghetto» feel of the restaurant made me think there would be amazing home-​cooked food.
Unfortunately, upon viewing the food laid out, I realized I should have come when the food was fresh. Being that I’m not familiar with Filipino food, the menu was extremely difficult to navigate through and I had no idea what was what. The lady in the front was a little helpful but I still felt lost.
I went with the safe bet and ordered the breakfast and asked for their most common and popular two dishes. They gave me the sausage and the pulled beef.
Maybe I’m just not a fan of Filipino food but I thought the food was overly sweet and salty. The rice was not as good as imagined. It wasn’t fresh and came from a giant rice cooker so I’m sure that affected the quality of it. The soup was a nice addition to the meal but I found it to be too sour and salty. The meal also came with a soda/​bottled water.
So for $ 6, I suppose you can’t complain too much. $ 6 is a bargain for any kind of meal and I would say if you’re a fan of Filipino food, this is definitely a meal you need to take advantage of. I would love to try good Filipino food but I don’t think I would come back here.

I decided to try Filipino food for the first time — I am happy to say it is now one of my favorites!
We went at noon and for $ 6 you can get rice with two side dishes which comes with free soup, turon, AND a drink!
The food itself is delicious and very comforting.
Very friendly and sweet staff as well.
Great deal.
HIGHLY recommend!!!

I always dropped by to eat breakfast when we were still living in NJ coz of their AWESOME homemade skinless langgonisa and other breakfast items. I always ended up buying several pounds of the ready-​to-​cook langgonisa to take home. Their own übe jam is very good! It’s just a very small place with a few tables. The owner is very nice and I wish her continued success!

Best Filipino breakfast! Served all day too! Silogs for $ 6
Service is extremely friendly as well :)

Great little Filipino restaurant. Have you heard about the $ 6 «combo» meal???
I always get the same exact thing; tapsilog. For the none Filipino would-​be patrons, tap-​si-​log is one of our traditional breakfasts. But here they serve them ALL DAY!
«Tap» is short for tapa which is Filipino for cured beef or mutton or even venison. «Si» is short for sinangag which is garlic fried rice. «Log» is itlog which just means egg. In this case its always sunny side up.
They have a whole list for their «silog» on their All Day Breakfast menu. Longsilog is cured pork sausage, Daingsilog is cured fried milkfish, etc.
They also have their usual menu which I think varies from day to day. This showcases some of the famous home cooked Filipino dishes. All served with rice. Rice is our staple food –so bre prepared to just eat meat and rice.
So there you go. Try it, please! You’ll be amazed how $ 6 can still get you somewhere!

Great comfort food that doesn’t hurt your wallet. I was pretty fortunate to come here with someone who is Filipino so it made it easy to decide what to order. It’s a small hole-​in-​the-​wall type place that doesn’t have a lot of space inside to eat, but when we got there we had no trouble grabbing a table.
Longanisa combo was awesome & I would definitely recommend the spring rolls here as well.

First time @ this establishment, had a lot of questions. Staff was patient and friendly.
$ 6 combo meal was very filling = rice + choice of 2 dishes + hot soup + Turon (sweet banana inside crispy spring roll skin) + bottled water or soda. My choice of two dishes was (1) whole fried fish with egg & tomato sauce, pretty tasty (2) Mongo aka mung bean stew, love the smokiness from the pork. Will be back for their all-​day breakfast specials.
2-​hour street parking — very tight as it was not a wide street. If you don’t like parking on the street, there’s more parking space behind the stores.

I like the place a lot, mostly for lunch. The food is fresh and tasty, varies from day to day, and the people friendly.
It’s very good for a fast lunch, as the food is already made. $ 6 pris fix for a combo, including clear soup, an egg roll and a soft drink.

Unreal. 6 $ prefix is perfect. Little shop with great food.

We have eaten here many times. I would guess about 50 times or so over the past 8 years. The food is basically the same. Cusinera is the traditional Filipino turo-​turo. The combo meal cost about $ 6.00 and for breakfast you have a choice of rice and eggs with a meat side or for lunch/​dinner rice and 2 sides. They also include soup and turon with the combo meal. This week we had stopped between breakfast and lunch. Our son got breakfast — — rice, eggs, and longanisa (Filipino sausage); but he could have had a number of other meats — — my personal favorite is beef tapa. The rest of the party had chicken adobo, lumpiang shanghai, and fish — — but they have probably another 5 or 6 other dishes to choose from. The food is good and the lunch/​dinner sides are different every day. Every time we go there the food is freshly cooked — — which can sometimes be a problem with a tuto-​turo. Bottomline — — it’s probably the best Filipino breakfast and food in town — — and for those who don’t like to drive through a city, you are not driving through Jersey City or Queens. They also have a catering menu. Parking is not a problem as there is a parking lot in the rear of the building. Enjoy.