Café 5th Floor sits on avenue Dollard in LaSalle, run by the three women who started it as a micro-bakery out of their fifth-floor apartment. The Filipino influence runs through everything. Sandos are built on pandesal baked in house, with family recipes behind the fillings, an egg and cheese for vegetarians and a BLT that uses chicken bacon. Pastry leans French with Asian flavours: ube cannelés, a matcha basque cake, coconut-pandan tartlets, hojicha brownies. Coffee comes from Café Buhay, a Filipino micro-roaster, and the matcha is uji grade from Japan. Both are sold by the bag, alongside work by local artists arranged in the spirit of a sari-sari store. The café doesn't take tips. Anyone inclined to leave one is pointed to Centraide, and healthcare workers get 10% off.