Kumare Restaurant & Bakery

A place to go for a filipino cuisine, i love the ukoy, langing. I visit them just for the lechon, I was dissapointed, the skin was really hard, it is hard ti bite, I was expecting that it willbe crispy like way back home. I inform them but was inform manager was not there. It looks like if the manager is not there, no one can deal with the problem. Customer service is average, it doesn’t reflect filipino hospitality!

Great Filipino food! Pork Sisig and Pork barbecue is their best dish here. They use to serve putobumbong for dessert but they took it out of the menu, kinda upsetting!

I don’t understand some of the poor reviews. I find this place decent. Staff are always happy to see you and serve you. The food is authentic Filipino. I love the Kare Kare (dish in peanut sauce). I like that they make it with beef or chicken. I love the lechon kawali (deep fried pork belly). I love the pork barbeque. I think they have the best pork bbq compared to Pinpin or Little Ongpin. I like the fact that this is also a bakery. I live Filipino dessert specially the ube cake (purple yam cake). The only complain I have is the exhaust. This place can really improve on their exhaust system so customers don’t smell like oil after dining.

The food is ok not the best. Little Ongpin will be a better place for filipino food, they did have a good tasty pork sewers but the quality has gone down.

The worst experience! Serving me with panis na rice! Rotten RICE! The egg was not even cook! What else could be worst with this restaurant???
They need a new cook! I’m paying for my food and then you are serving me Rotten Rice??? What are you guys thinking???

Lots of dessert choices here
They probably hate me for this, but I treat this place as more of a café

I use to go here when it just opened, and found the food really good, but haven’t been here for awhile, I came here with my mom and ordered some food. My mom bought pastries at the front and brought it to the table and the worker came up to my mom and assumed she brought her lunch to eat here and said excuse me not to be rude but you can’t eat your lunch here!!! That really irritated me, bad customer service, doesn’t even know what type of food your serving, ask your colleagues before assuming. Food wasn’t great I find Ongpin has better food and better customer service. Owner must train your workers better restaurant etiquette !!!

Definitely worth the drive from Vancouver WA to Vancouver BC. Everything tasted just right, just like how good Filipino restaurants make it in the Philippines. Crispy pata was so good. Will be returning for the lechon (only served on weekends)

We went on Canada Day and the restaurant was a little busy but seemed manageable. We were a group of 7 and reserved in advance however, the servers were very disorganized and inefficient. Our server would place the food on one end of the table as if she were in a hurry and did not even ask if we needed anything else. Not once did the server check in on us and we had to get bowls from the counter ourselves. Not very reflective of filipino hospitality. I hope they train their staff better. We ordered pork sinigang but got pork with soup that tasted fish sinigang. How can you do this to a popular filipino dish? Tsk tsk

I will be honest in saying that I don’t have much of a pallet for Filipino food. In fact my good friend tried to turn me on to it, however, it just wasn’t happening. I am, however, a big fan of Filipino pastries and desserts, therefore, came in here to sit down and just have dessert. They didn’t seem to receptive to that since I wasn’t dropping a lot of cash. I did ensure that I came off the rush so that I wasn’t wasting space. The unwelcome feeling left me sour. Honestly I recommend Max’s.

I’m upping my rating for this restaurant because me and the wife came back yesterday for an early dinner and it was marvellous. The Kare Kare was simply to die for, the Chicken Mami was great, and the Turon was really good. Service was fast!

That’s being generous lol. If you want fair pricing, and better food, go to Max’s or Siga Siga; at least they charge the same prices.
Their online food delivery system is at least 10% higher…

My co-​worker suggested to try Kumare. I did. I’m not impress about the food but the service was polite and nice

Healthy Philippono Food!
I eat here from time to time and the service is friendly.
I am from the Philippines and this place has the authentic favourites with a healthy twist. This is the main reason why I still eat here.
Normally Philippino food is oily and fatty, but Kumare uses fresh lean ingredients. It is a good and bad thing. It makes the classic favourites less tasty, but it wont be drenched in delicious high sodium fat.
The Halo-​Halo crushed ice dessert is the best in town!

Quite a late review, but here goes.
I’ve been to this restaurant several times with different people each time. I would say that recently the reason I keep coming back is due to my Chinese boyfriend liking this place and its food. Each time we would order the Pork Sisig – full sizzling plate with fresh ingredients, Pork Sinigang, Chicken BBQ in a stick, Pork Liempo and a bucket of rice. I’m very impressed with the sisig due to the quantity you get as well as the flavor and presentation; however, the last time I’ve been to Kumare’s wasn’t too great.
I went during a Friday night with 3 other friends – all Chinese, wanting to have a taste at Filipino food. That night was a chilly night out in Vancouver, we expected the place to be warm. Nope we switched tables, away from the window was we can feel the chill. We moved into one of the tables against the wall, it didn’t help. We kept our coats on. We asked the server but he said that the temperature was already set like that. Hmm, OK. Let’s just sit uncomfortably inside the restaurant with our coats on.
Anyway, so I ordered the usual but this time I was very disappointed for the second time that night. First off, there wasn’t a lot of servers for a busy time. It was just that one guy who seemed to own the place – I mean another server would be nice really, maybe to top up our drinks, or even to check on how the food is, and just to offer help really. A little minor observation/​suggestion, no biggie. Then how the food was brought to the table was annoying. They served each dish ONE at a time. We had our Sinigang first – okay, so we gobbled it up just because we know that eating it cool ain’t cool, plus we were still chilly. Oh by the way, we ate it alone with NO rice yet. A bit weird, but it gets worse. Then the Pork hock (crispy pata) came, again with no rice, we were famished so we just ate it. On its own. Then the BBQ chicken, then the Sisig – a total disappointment. I literally thought that it was either old stuff reheated or that there was a new cook in the back. So much for trying to introduce Filipino food to newbies. I even asked the server if they switched Cooks. Typically their Sisig can feed 2 – 3 people, this basically just fed 1 – 1.5. It was flattened out rather than the usual over the top serving. The sizzling plate died in 5 minutes once it reached our table. The taste and texture very odd. Anyway, finally our rice arrived. And I think it was either undercooked or old. Like the last bits in the bottom of the pot. It even tasted like it might’ve been microwaved. So we finished eating our rice with the last bits of sisig left and didn’t even bother to take the remaining rice home.
I hope that this was a fluke and that they’d hopefully fix it because I think that they’re one of the most decent Filipino restaurants, i love the modern décor and feel of the place hence why I keep on coming back, but if this is how they continued business I’m not surprised if they eventually closed down.
Hopefully once I’m ready to get my sisig on they would’ve read this review.

The four of us had dinner there recently. Not my first time eating Filipino food. Pleasantly surprised by the clean space. Fairly modernistic and somewhat upscale for an Asian place. We thoroughly enjoyed our meals and shared everything. Prices were very reasonable. Free parking right out in front. The meals were very tasty and just as good as other Filipino places. Definitely try the BBQ skewers as an appie. We had about 4 other dishes and all very good. Try the Halo Halo for dessert. Super colourful and tasty and huge portion size for the family. Service was sketchy and the place got very loud when a huge family group showed up with a number of children.

This was a good experience of Filipino food for my family. They never really tried Filipino food and didn’t know if they would like it. I think they’ve changed thier minds now. The food was very good. We had 4 or 5 dishes and they were all tasty. The Pork sisig was very flavorful and developed a cruncy crust from the sizzling plate. It was my favorite dish. The milk fish was also good and seasoned well.
I’m taking away 1 star because the service could be better. You need to flag them down if you needed anything. Our waitress looked grumpy. She could smile more.

First time my bf brought my family and friends here, it was a Saturday night. Even though we made a reservation, we still had to wait a bit. We were sat in the back corner where there was no air flow, and the humid warm-​ish weather that day didn’t help the cause. Ordered the crispy pata, Kumare’s fish, Laing, pork sisig, and a big bowl of rice for us 5.
Crispy pata — mmmm. crispy pork hock dipped in vinegar. my only complaint was that I didn’t get to eat much of the crispy skin cuz my friends are pigs (j/​k)
Kumare’s fish — mom wanted a fish dish. The sauce covering it was sweet and sour, and pretty much saved the otherwise bland fish under it.
Laing — taro leaves in coconut sauce; we wanted a veggie dish to accompany all the oily stuff, only to realize there are meat bits hidden in there: D It was very interesting, though, texture like spinach, and doesn’t taste bad at all
pork sisig — minced pork (+ veggies+egg) on sizzling plate. Mix it all together and serve with rice. After the mixing, it doens’t look appetizing at all, but the taste is there: D I think it was the favorite dish that evening, aside from the crispy pata.
Second time i went with bf only, on a not so busy day, and ordered the crispy pata with kare kare sauce, and pork sinigang. The kare kare sauce (peanut) didn’t do much for the dish at all, so we ended up asking for a plate of vinegar to dip it in. Not worth the extra $ 2 imo. Sinigang is a sour soup, and trust me, it took a few meals for me to get used to it, as I’m used to the usually salty, occasionally sweet, Chinese soups. The combination of the two dishes was awesome; the fried oily stuff was balanaced by the sourness of the soup. Yumzors.
Prolly will be the it filipino place to go for us (that’s not as far as Coquitlam — see Kulinarya).
P. S. beware of the washroom sink; i generally do not like touching the sink basin unless i have to clean it =/

«What’s a Kumare?» I asked my Tagalog-​speaking boyfriend. «Dunno,» he shrugged back. Google translate is similarly stumped.
We ordered the grilled squid (inihaw na pusit) and beef karekare, with a large bowl of garlic rice. Everything came out fairly quickly and we dug in.
The squid was very good; I think The Boy ate about ²⁄₃ of it. Sad face for me! It’s marinated in something like a sweet-​soy garlic sauce and stuffed with red and green peppers and onions. The karekare was also tasty but a little heavy on oil and a little light on oxtails. My boyfriend said that the food was not «too westernized» and still tasted authentic.
Overall I was pretty happy with our meals. The décor of the restaurant was more upscale than the cafeteria-​style Filipino places that are more common. You’re not paying street-​food prices here, but I think Kumare does a good job at trying to do for Filipino food what Banana Leaf has done for Malaysian food (i.e. updating it and upscaling it.).
I agree with Dru C. about the bathroom sinks; I had a temporary mindfreak moment.

A good looking restaurant with mediocre food. I enjoyed the atmosphere of the place as my friend says it really reminds her of the typical Filipino family style restaurant.
The decorations of the place was duked out in typical IKEA furniture. They tried atleast, and I appreciate that, so they get points for that. The layout of the resturant is what I do not like. Entering you see the kitchen and the «barista» table like place with the bakery goods. I don’t seem to like that, but it was interesting and different. The washroom had the weirdest sink ever, you must see it, it was an eye spectacul.
We ordered the Pork Sicsig, Chicken Pandan, Pad Thai and the Lechon Kawali. (The lechon kawali really reminded me of Cha Siu Yok) but for sure the Pandan and the Sicsig was AMAZING. I can say these were my favourite dishes of the night. All these dishes amazingly mixes well with white rice, and it made the rice taste better. The only downside is the sauce was not as special as I thought. Just a lot of oil, garlic and onions used.
It was really really heavy in oil, but the food was sizzling hot. The food was well made, but I just dislike how the style it is made in. It could just be the origin of the style it is made, but I don’t like it as much as I thought I would.
The good side is that the place is well kept, clean and tidy. Good atmosphere and a very cute waiter, who is not Filipino but very hot. :P