Kare-Kare at KKK

I love Kare-Kare, a filipino stew made with peanut sauce and a variety of meats, usually oxtail, beef and tripe, and a variety of vegetables.


I remember as a kid, we would often go to my grandfather's house and he had a huge gilingan (millstone) where they ground roasted peanuts and toasted rice grains to make the kare-kare sauce.  My mom would also cook kare-kare at home every once in a while.  She would have a large pot of meats, buntot ng baka (oxtail), tuwalya (tripe), and bituka (intestine) and boiled them until tender. The vegetables were blanched separately... puso ng saging (banana blossom), pechay, sitaw (string beans) and talong (eggplant).  Nowadays, ground roasted peanuts and ground toasted rice grains are available in the local markets, even kare-kare mixes, but nothing beats kare-kare made from scratch.


I find it difficult to cook kare-kare, so I rarely do.  But since I love the dish, I order it whenever I try out a Filipino restaurant.  So far, I've tasted different versions of kare-kare at different restaurants, some were okay, some were so-so.  The latest I've had was the kare-kare at KKK Pinoy Food Revolution at SM Mall of Asia.


I took my kids with me at the SMX Book Fair, and after traipsing around the huge convention hall, with tired feet, growling stomachs and books in tow, we headed for the KKK restaurant at MOA.  A friend of mine told me that she liked their kare-kare, so I was interested in trying that out.

Kare-kare... I liked it.  The peanut sauce was tasty, meats were tender and vegetables were blanched right.  I also liked their sweet-salty bagoong, a perfect pair for this dish.

Other dishes we ordered were Crispy Bangus Belly in Mango Sauce.  This was also delicious, my first time to taste bangus (milkfish) with singkamas (jicama) in ripe mango sauce...

 ... and Gising-Gising, a vegetable dish made from kangkong stalks, jalapeño peppers, tuna flakes, tomatoes and onions, cooked in coconut milk.  I loved the spicy taste of this dish.

And we had Halo-Halo for dessert...




KKK Pinoy Food Revolution can be found at the Entertainment Wing, Ground Floor, SM Mall of Asia.