Food is Fun

Not for revolutionary fervor or love of Bonifacio but for the taste of grilled liempo did I venture out to West Avenue to check out this joint called KKK. Throw in more of the suman at mangga that I doggie-bagged from a recent reception that KKK catered and I would risk the closed intersections and unfamiliar U-turn slots of Quezon Avenue to get to the famous Examiner Street, at which corner with West Avenue the restaurant is located.

Kainan sa Kalye Kanluran is what the initials stand for, but the Katipunan spirit is alive and cooking at this eatery, from the psychedelic Warhol-esque portrait of Ka Andres Bonifacio on the menu to reproductions of old photos adorning the bar to the old wood posts and dining tables and chairs.

A confluence of tastes and events brought the five friends of KKK Food Revolution together. On the property of what was the old family home of one of the partners rose an airy, free-flowing structure built with a cache of old wood salvaged from the houses buried under lahar in Pampanga.

Pampanga is home province of four of the partners, which partly explains the venture, though they all have "day jobs", so to speak. Louie Gutierez, whose home this used to be, is in the jewelry business. Raoul Henson is an opthalmologist (and a newlywed too). John Villanueva is a fast food franchisee in Pampanga. Al Purugganan is a private events and party planner with the most restaurant experience among the group, having worked in restaurants and hotels after graduating with a degree in hotel and restaurant management. Analyn Arce, the non-Kapampangan, is nevertheless pedigreed because of her family’s Arce ice cream, and with little prodding she’ll give you the low-down on ice cream treats around town.

"Don’t say fusion," Al-P stresses as we take the first tantalizing sip of the house specialty, kamias shake. "It’s Filipino food that explores our Asian connections...(which) existed before Spanish colonization."

Whether the ancient land bridges included food bridges or not, the Fil-Asian taste collaboration works out well here. Imagine sinigang (sour soup) with tanglad (lemongrass) that hints of the popular tom yam soup of Thailand. There’s hito grilled and seasoned just like Japanese unagi (eel), shrimps or butterfly’d tilapia spiced up with sweet chili sauce, and fish fillet with sitao (string beans) in a curry sauce.

Home specialties are given a twist too. Lechon manok–now done in-house, previously sourced from a popular sidewalk chain–is cooked in gata (coconut milk), while lechon kawali is done with bagoong (fish or shrimp paste). What looks like benign fried shrimp balls are really balut balls done as tempura. There’s bistek tokwa and tuna pika (tuna sashimi in crisp wonton pockets), lumpiang shanghai (spring rolls) cheese’d up, and five varieties of sinangag (fried rice)–traditional with garlic, adobo, with bagoong, with aligue (crab roe) or tinapa at itlog na maalat (dried fish and salted egg).

The grilled hito with buro (fermented rice) and mustasa (fresh mustard leaves) is a sure winner, the buro a secret concoction of the Henson family cook Manang Ester. Also from the Henson kitchen comes kinilaw na puso ng saging (seviche of heart of banana) and "Pampanga’s pride" of a dessert, tibok-tibok (majablanca made with carabao’s milk).

Aside from the Arce ice cream varieties that populate the generous dessert selection–the mark of a good restaurant, if you ask me–the Arce family cook Jake is immortalized in Adobo ni Jake, the all-time Pinoy favorite done the "old fashioned way," Analyn insists.

The dessert selection needs serious consideration, with such tempters as Pampanga alo-alo (if you can’t figure out what this is you don’t get any dessert!), leche flan with carabao’s milk, a skyscraper made up of three tiers of turon (banana fritters) topped with Arce’s mantecado ice cream, coffee jelly with the legendary chocnut ice cream, the afore-mentioned tibok-tibok and my personal favorite, suman at mangga (sweetened sticky rice pudding with fresh mango slices).

I’ve saved the best for last; Andres Bonifacio would have been proud of this. It’s not surprising that the grilled liempo (pork belly) bacon cut is the house bestseller.

"We needed a star dish," explains Al-P. "Pinoys are very ma-pork, di ba, and inihaw na liempo is really a mainstay in any Filipino menu. But we wanted an edge to it, to ‘revolutionize’ it..." Luckily, they found a fellow Kapampangan pork supplier who could thin cut the pork; communal taste-testing efforts resulted in the hottest item on the menu.

Pair that with the ensaladang pako (fern shoots with salted fish flakes and salted egg) or, if pako is not in season, the ensaladang inihaw na talong (grilled eggplant salad), throw in the hito with buro and oh my! Can we still fight a revolution on a full stomach?

KKK styles itself as a "gimmick" place; its tag line is "Inuman... pulutan...tugtugan. Tara na... gimmick na!" (The spirit of that will be lost in translation so I’m not going to try.) You can have parties there (the upstairs hall can accommodate up to a hundred) with their "Katipunero Package Menus", order out (they have limited delivery service, call 371-9099) and they cater, "but not yet full blast," Al-P qualifies. You can ask about their palay (rice seedlings) centerpieces, you can bring lolo and lola and the kids too, and you can tell them about Ka Andres and the Katipunan and why it’s so important to know who we are and where we came from and what our food and culture is all about, and why, despite fiscal crises real or otherwise, it really is pretty good to be Pinoy.