Kanin Club

Westgate Center

About

Kanin means rice in Filipino, and Kanin Club is famous in the Metro for putting their particular twist to rice as well as to traditional Filipino foods. The Westgate Center branch which I patronize is always jampacked during mealtimes (as is true with their other branches in the metro), with long waiting lines. If you haven't made a reservation, expect a minimum 30-minute wait for a table--longer, if it's a payday, weekend, or payday AND weekend. The restaurant offers no less than 10 rice variants to choose from--not surprising, given its name. These range from your regular steamed white rice to brown rice, cholesterol-laden aligue (crab fat) rice, tinapa (smoked fish) rice, to fully-loaded rice (which is laden with chinese sausage, egg, crab, meat. peas, and ham) and everything else in-between. We threw caution to the winds and went with aligue rice, fully-loaded rice, and Sinigang sinangag--their version of the local favorite soup, with pork belly and veggies and the sinigang flavor one would expect, but sans the soup! The first two turned out to be no big deal, but the Sinigang sinangag...while a bit strange without the soup ...was great! The resto has an extensive menu featuring appetizers, soups, salads, noodles, main dishes, seafood, veggies, and desserts. Our favorites, in no particular order: 1) Tomato, Onion, Cilantro & Kesong Puti (white goat's cheese) Salad; 2) Green Mango Salad (Silvered green mango, onions, cilantro and peanuts with a sweet-salty-sour lime dressing); 3) Crispy Tadyang (Crunchy and beef spare ribs); 4) Crispy Tenga (Crispy pork ears); 5). Dinuguan (Pork stew flavored with vinegar and pork blood); 6) Calderetang Nueva (Beef stewed in coconut milk, tomato sauce and spices); 7) Binukadkad na Tilapia (Deep fried crunchy tilapia, butterflied) and of course, the Sinigang sinangag. The rest of the menu, even with their "twist" is pretty much run-of-the-mill. Average price per dish on the menu would be about PhP200. Our bill ran to PhP3000 for a meal for four, but that's because we were super hungry and wanted to get everything we loved on the menu! Notice, we didn't have space in our tummies to order any soups, noodles, or desserts. :) Happy Eating!