Sarap! After Mass today, we took a walk. In my head, I wanted to go to Surrey for the Filipino Fiesta Extravaganza for Filipino food. When we reached Commercial Drive (after walking from Maple Street along West Broadway), we did a quick Google search just to confirm if it was still in the same location. To my horror, hubby found out that it had been postponed.
Since I still wanted Filipino food, we walked north from Broadway to Kulinarya Filipino Eatery to get my Filipino food fix. Since it was lunch time, we were able to order from the available rice combo meals.
I went for vegan kare-kare. It's a peanut sauce-based stew that's creamy, rich, and goes exceptionally well with rice. Since it's vegan, it came with bok choy, eggplant, and green beans. The usual version comes with beef, but I have always preferred the meatless version. I asked for bagoong (fermented fish or shrimp paste) for an additional umami bomb. It's perfect. I daresay that this is the best kare-kare I've had in Vancouver.
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Vegan Kare-Kare Rice Combo Meal from Kulinarya Filipino
Eatery Bok choy, eggplant, and green beans in a rich savoury peanut sauce with jasmine rice |
We have had food from Kulinarya before, but it's always been delivered, so it's truly hard to assess how good the food is until enjoyed in the restaurant.
Hubby went for the lechon kawali (fried pork belly) combo with rice, liver sauce (sarsa), and pickled papaya (atchara). In general, I don't eat anything too fatty so while I appreciate the piece he shared, I hate the feeling of fat in my mouth. I did enjoy the atchara though.
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Lechon Kawali Rice Combo Meal from Kulinarya Filipino
Eatery Fried pork belly, served with sweetened liver sauce with jasmine rice, house pickled papaya, and fried egg |
For sharing, we got spring rolls (lumpiang shanghai). It's perfectly crispy outside and stuffed with pork inside. I enjoy the sweet dipping sauce it came with. However, the best lumpia in Metro Vancouver is still from Little Ongpin.
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Spring Rolls from Kulinarya Filipino Eatery Hand-rolled ground pork and vegetables, with sweet chili dip |
To end our already wonderful meal, we shared a classic Halo-Halo, which is perfect to beat the summer heat.
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Halo-Halo from Kulinarya Filipino Eatery Shaved ice cream with green jelly, sweet beans, tapioca, pearls, coconut jelly topped with ube ice cream, purple yam, leche flan, and pinipig |
Below is a list of the dishes we have tried from Kulinarya so far:
- Batil Patong Noodles (not in the menu)
- Beef Kaldereta
- Canton Pancit Bihon
- Cassava Cake
- Chicken Adobo
- Daing na Bangus
- Halo-Halo
- Kare-Kare
- Laing (not in menu)
- Lechon Kawali
- Spring Rolls
- Ube Brownie
- Turon (not in menu)
- Vegan Kare-Kare
