Every Sunday we would, all six of us, pile into Dad’s Toyota Corona and drive to Barrio Fiesta on Pasay Road, Makati. We’d always order the same thing: crispy pata, bopis… and kare-kare. We were never a sinigang family, it was always kare-kare. That began a lifelong love for that soulful, heartwarming ulam. Even through a misguided 12-year semi-vegetarian phase.
So far the best kare-kare I’ve had is always home-made. I’m on a mission to find the best restaurant kare-kare in town.
My kare-kare biases:
-it must be soupy
-it must have puso ng saging
-it must have the perfect bagoong. Kare-kare-bagoong pairing is as precise an art as food and wine pairing.
I googled a list of the Top 10 Restaurants with the best kare-kare (seven of them are in town); I’m adding to this list a bunch of other friends’ recommendations and for the next weeks I’ll be trying them out.
(Kare-kare is a stew of oxtail and tripe in peanut sauce. Image from recipe.foohta.com)
