Kare-kare is a peanut butter dish. A family-size pot uses 150 to 200g of ground peanuts or peanut butter, which is 900 to 1,200 calories of sauce spread across 6 servings. Your 80g ladle of sauce is about 200 calories before the meat. Then oxtail, which is fatty even after skimming, adds 260 calories per 100g. That is how a dish full of eggplant, string beans and banana heart still lands at 500.
The bagoong is small but not free. A tablespoon of sautéed shrimp paste is about 30 calories, and most people take three because kare-kare without it tastes flat. Sautéed bagoong has oil and sugar in it, so it is not the same as raw alamang. Count 90 to 100 calories for a normal amount at a restaurant.
Restaurant kare-kare in Manila runs 350 to 600 pesos for a serving meant for two, and it usually gets finished by one. That is 1,000 calories of ulam before rice. The crispy kare-kare trend, where lechon kawali or bagnet replaces the oxtail, adds another 300 calories per serving because you are putting deep fried belly into peanut sauce.