I did a double take as we passed a sign en route to the Bangui Windmills. Kang Kang Café? Seriously? We had a few laughs and eventually forgot about it.

A few years later and I’m staring at another sign with the curiously named café on it but this time, the actual coffee shop is just a few steps away from where I was standing. KangKang Café is not a figment of a fast moving tricycle and my imagination, it is a real place after all.

Before writing this article, I’ve been texting my Ilocano friends asking them if they knew what kangkang means. Well, no such word exists in the dialect they say, so I guess it means what it must mean for the rest of the country. A word which is really not fit for this space hehe.

Upon further research, I finally found out why the café was named as such. And mind you, there is nothing lewd or malicious about the name.

It turns out KangKang Windmill Café was simply named after the sitio it is located in. The name being derived from birds frequenting the area making the “kang kang” sounds.

And now that we have that out of the way, let’s check what KangKang is really made of.

The café is really more like an open-aired cafeteria along the towering windmills of Bangui. It’s basically a thatched roof structure supported by concrete pillars with Orocan chairs and tables inside.

They serve mostly Filipino dishes with a few local ones like Poqui-poqui, Dinengdeng and Bagnet thrown in the mix. True to their name, they also serve caffeinated drinks, the most famous being their Kangkang Brew (Php55.00) and Kangkang Blend (Php65.00).

We were hankering for platefuls of rice meals though when we arrived at the café, so no coffee for us. The menu indicated that the dishes were good for two so we ordered Nilaga Beef and Sizzling Sisig which we suppose were okay for four persons, while our friends asked for fried chickens and Sinigang Pork.

Nilaga Beef? Sinigang Pork? Do they have Yoda write down the menu or something?

We raided their water cooler while waiting for our food; the weather was blazingly hot, contrasting to the cloudy/rainy skies earlier.

The first to arrive was the Nilaga Beef (Php245.00)--Beef Nilaga for non-Yoda talkers. The soup was steaming hot and very very tasty; too tasty in fact. I think they put too much fish sauce on the broth. The serving looked good for two, but for biggies like us, it’s a bit of a stretch.

The Sizzling Sisig (Php215.00) arrived next and unfortunately it wasn’t sizzling at all. I liked my sisig crunchy but the ones being served at KangKang Café were the soft kind complete with pork fats and what-nots. Even though I’m really not fond of this type of sisig, theirs were actually pretty good and I actually liked it.

The Fried Chicken (Php200.00) looked crispylicious and the Sinigang Pork (Php220.00) seemed delicious but I wasn’t able to try both since I was too shy to ask for a taste hehe.

Being the only diner near the Bangui Windmills, KangKang Café can definitely hold customers by their ear. The price for me is a bit too steep in relation to the serving size. I can let it pass if the food were superlatively delicious, unfortunately it was very average. I actually felt unsatisfied after the meal, I wanted a few more bite, but our good-for-four meal had already vanished.

So other than the very quirky name, KangKang Windmill Café is really just an expensive carinderia along the windmills. It’s a good enough place if you want to have a quick soda or maybe a cup of coffee--which I wasn’t able to try by the way--but for rice meals, I suggest… Err.. Unfortunately there’s no other place to suggest.

I guess it is KangKang or nothing.

KangKang Windmill Cafe
Address: Sitio KangKang, Barangay Baruyen
Bangui, Ilocos Norte
Open Hours: 7:30AM – 11:00PM Everyday
Telephone: (0927) 431-8805 | (0917) 921-3103
Menu: Click Here

GPS Coordinates: 18.528638,120.692023
Google Maps Location: Click Here