Sooo Pinoy: Kanin Club

I’ve always heard a lot about Kanin Club, apparently it has a lot of fans, but for some reason (mainly because none of their branches are near my usual haunts), I have never tried eating there. So when we found out that it was to be the next stop of our Sooo Pinoy food tour, I was really stoked to try out what all the buzz was about. Since we all happened to be starving by then (it was a late lunch), we ordered like there was no tomorrow.

Sinigang Na Tadyang Ng Baka

This was sooo good. It’s the way I like my sinigang. Plus, the best part of it was, the meat was so tender! The slivers of meat were practically falling apart with the slightest chew. Definitely this was the way to start off a HUGE meal.

Sinangag Na Sinigang

When we first tweeted that we were going to Kanin Club, everyone started suggesting that we get this. Actually I’m not sure if it’s Sinigang na Sinangag or Sinangag na Sinigang. But this is an amazing invention! It’s so good. Obviously it goes best with the sinigang na tadyang. Together with the dilis rice of Fely J’s, this is the rice to beat.

Binukadkad Na Plapla

Dear plapla, we’re deeply sorry for making you deadma. In a fit of pagbabalatkayo, we ordered out token healthy dish, which we then practically ignored. Not to say that it wasn’t good, because it was (I ate a good chunk), but compared to the plethora of flavors that barraged our taste buds, this dish was pretty much overshadowed.

Bistek Tagalog

I posted these two dishes first because they were the ones a bit overlooked by us. I guess what made the other dishes stand out were the little twists that they delivered. The bistek was pretty much your standard bistek, and I would’ve wanted the meat to be a tad more tender, like the tadyang in the sinigang.

Adobo

This really caught my attention. First off, it didn’t really seem like adobo. Check out the sauce, it’s not your regular brown adobo sauce. It reminds me more of those tomato-based sauces like afritada or menudo or mechado. And it actually doesn’t taste anything like adobo as we know it. But you know what? It was dee-licious! I loved the unique flavor; I loved it not as adobo, but as a new dish. Plus, it had chicken, pork and liver, which I usually don’t see in most adobo dishes. But for some reason, the chicken tasted the best. I don’t know why, since they were all cooked together, but the flavor of the chicked was the best of the three ingredients.

Kare-Kare

No Pinoy food festival would be complete without my favorite dish, kare-kare. We had a choice between the regular kare-kare and the seafood variant. We opted for the regular, since all my co-diners are allergic to shrimps and crab. I like oxtail in my kare-kare but I don’t like tripe. Good thing this one had both. It’s very good kare-kare, very malinamnam and this is the only dish that I simply CANNOT eat unless I shovel spoonfuls of rice dripping with sauce in my mouth with it. Regardless of whatever low-carb diet I’m on, if I eat kare-kare, get the rice ready!

Crispy Dinuguan

This is the star of the show, the king of Kanin Club! Like I said, when we tweeted about our lunch, this was the most suggested dish. So we were like, what’s up with this crispy dinuguan; sounded weird actually. OH. MY. GOSH. With the first bite, we knew that THIS was our favorite dish. It’s basically dinuguan, but using chicharon (or bagnet or whatever crunchy fat-laden bits they were) and each bite or chew just squirted this wonderful chicha-yumminess to die for! But you can’t overdo this because I’m guessing that this is PURE SIN. But it is a gastronomic delight, definitely a must-try!

Let’s move on to the desserts:

Turon

Again, it’s turon like you’ve never experienced it. It’s not banana or langka, it’s some sort of ube-monggo-ish paste inside. Sweet, but too sweet, and very palatable. It takes getting used to, especially if you’re expecting the usual sweet banana flavor to welcome your taste buds, but once you get it, it’s quite delicious! The least sweet of the four desserts we tried.

Maruya

At Delle’s behest, we ordered maruya, mainly because she’s been telling me about it all these years, but I’ve never gotten around to trying it. It’s very rare for a restaurant to offer maruya as dessert. It was very good, but definitely much better ala mode. The ube ice cream was the perfect partner for it, although maruya-expert Delle said they usually eat it sans ice cream.

Leche Flan w/ Macapuno

This was my favorite. In our barkada, I’m the only one who’s not crazy about leche flan. I’m not a fan of flan. But this one was so creamy, and not so sweet, and the sweetness mostly comes form the macapuno on top. What a nice combo. The creaminess really got me!

Of course, what parade of Pinoy food would be complete without the Reyna Elena of Pinoy desserts? Again, what I love with the four desserts we tried is that none of them were too sweet. This one had just the right amount of sweetness to allow you to devour this glassful to the very last drop without getting umay.

Hands down, Kanin Club has been the most rewarding of our stops on our #SoooPinoy food tour. The dishes were the Pinoy classics, but many came with wonderful twists! We’ve never squealed with delight so often in one meal! For Pinoy cuisine aficionados, Kanin Club is a huge must. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

About these ads