Join the (Bagoong) Club!

Last night, Nerisse and I had dinner together. The funny thing was, we already had a planned here to eat. We were supposed to dine at Pen-Pen in Scout Area in Tomas Morato. We both haven’t tried it but I knew where it was located. So right after work, we met at Centris, got my car at home and off we went to find Pen-Pen. What happened next was certainly unexpected. I turned left on the parallel street before Morato in hopes of finding a better parking slot if we passed through the side streets. I made the wrong turn though and ended up a street ahead. We finally reached the street where Pen-Pen was located and didn’t see it! We drove through the entire street but it wasn’t there! We asked a guard and he said it was right at the corner. I couldn’t believe we missed it. We couldn’t have possibly missed it! We began to suspect that it was closed. We made another round of the street and true enough, it was gone. The guards of neighbor resto, Bellisimo said it was already gone. I’ve wanted to try that resto forever and now it was gone. (or maybe it’s moved, I just have to Google it.)

We were both hungry and looking for a place to eat. I told Nerisse about Bagoong Club, which Jan and I have tried before, and because we couldn’t see any other interesting resto, we decided to go there. It took me a few missed turns before we finally reached the resto. (I had wrong landmarks in mind)

As soon as we had the menus in our hands, Nerisse quickly said she wanted kare kare. Kare kare is a stew with ground peanut sauce (which we buy as “peanut butter” in the market), lots of veggies and meat and/or tripe. Kare kare is incomplete without bagoong or fermented shrimp paste, after which Bagoong Club is named after. Believe me, Filipinos have a penchant for this dish/condiment. To actually have a best-selling resto with this as main fare is enough proof. Anyway, in all honesty, I am not a fan of kare kare, and more than that, I am not a fan of bagoong. I don’t like salty foods (my preference goes to sweets) and the tripe in kare kare is so hard and weird to eat in its form that I don’t eat it. 

Bagoong Club has about 5 kare kare dishes and I pointed the Krispy and Kare dish to Nerisse. I told her it probably had crispy meat with it and we asked our server. True enough, it was kare kare sauce and veggies served with boneless crispy pata (deep fried pork leg). Now that was something I could eat. We ordered a cup of garlic rice each, with Nerisse thoughtful of how I can barely finish a cup of rice so we won’t be able to finish a serving of Bagoong Rice which was good for 3 persons. -Side story: The time Jan and I ate there, we ordered the Bagoong Rice. And he was able to finish it.-

here it is!

It was actually a great idea to incorporate two famous Filipino dishes, kare kare and crispy pata, in one. I enjoyed the dish a lot. The sauce was neither bland nor overpowering. It was a plus that it had lots of fried garlic bits sprinkled over it. The veggies were blanched and placed at the side, so they weren’t soggy and crushed. Most of all, the meat was tender, the skin was crisp, and tasty. The crispy pata’s skin was also a good addition to the usual kare kare dish. The texture was different and it made eating a lot more enjoyable. What I don’t like about the usual kare-kare is the meat is cooked with the sauce and it has very little taste on its own. It’s usually quite bland and as a result, the bagoong is used to make the whole dish tasty.

Surprisingly, I did the unusual last night. I put bagoong in my kare kare. First of all, Bagoong Club’s bagoong tasted good (they have several variants by the way, which you can ask your server for a taste of) and I just felt that it was probably designed to come with bagoong anyway. Just to clarify, I eat dishes with bagoong in it, I just don’t usually eat it alone or add it to my normal food. Krispy and kare actually made me like kare kare and bagoong together! I would definitely order this again the next time I visit the Club. It's a two-in-one dish! I can say Bagoong club has not failed me so far. I also love their Crispy Binagoongan which similar to this is crispy pata in binagoongan sauce. As far as I'm concerned, you better join the (Bagoong) Club.

P.S. Nerisse and I were already full after this meal but of course we couldn’t go home without dessert. We ended up having our cake in Fleur de Lys. Read that part of the night here.