Notes from the Philippines: Mei Hua Pot and Noodle House
Monday, June 21, 2010 at 09:31AM Intro note by Angela: My brother Jaime (four years younger) is no stranger to either good food or the District. He lived with me for a couple of years while finishing up his pre-med requirements before starting medical school in the Philippines last May. Jim is a very adventurous eater (and a pretty darned good cook), even more so than I, so I was excited to find an email from him this morning regarding his own food adventures, apparently in response to our post on Full Kee, one of his favorite places to eat in D.C. I hope that this will be the first of many guest posts by Jim.
Hey Angela and Mark,
Reading about your culinary adventures inspired me to take a few pics. Admittedly, I probably should have taken pictures of Filipino food, or as they call it here, “food,” but the amount and variety of types of food available here in the Metro Manila area is staggering. I suppose that is somewhat to be expected, given both the cosmopolitan nature of Manila and the Filipino love of food.
Your new post is actually very well timed, since one of my favorite places to eat here is a small chain called Mei Hua Pot and Noodle House. It is best described as a combination of Chinatown Express and Full Kee. So it should come as no surprise to you that it is one of my favorite places to eat. This particular noodle house is located in Trinoma mall, an upscale mall several stops down on the LRT\MRT elevated train system.
Like Full Kee, they have delicacies that you might not see in mainstream Chinese places. One such delightful dish is the fried intestines (below). Unlike at Full Kee, where the sauce is tangy and sweet, the fried intestines are accompanied by a vinegar and pepper mixture.
Another favorite of mine is the century egg and jellyfish (below). The century egg was topped with a sweet and somewhat thick soy sauce mixture; admittedly, with my untrained tongue I could be totally wrong about that. The jellyfish was topped with a sesame sauce.
The xiao long pao (below) I ordered were good and had enough liquid to really be considered soup dumplings. However, since they were stuck to the bottom of the steaming tray, I was only able to have one untorn and fully-filled dumpling.
The ansio beef noodle soup (below) is a filling soup made with braised beef, Chinese broccoli, a hard boiled egg, and hand-pulled noodles.
Everything there is delicious, or as they say in these parts, masarap.
Love,
Jaime
The Philippines in Reviews: On The Town
Reader Comments (6)
Aww, Angela, such a wonderful guest post!! Hope Jaime will make more cameo appearances:).
Thanks, Shulie! My little brother is the best - such a sweet kid, and he knows his food. And a good writer too, huh?
That's so great your brother is contributing to your blog. Great post!
Michelle-
Yeah, when he sent me that email, I immediately asked if I could use it as a guest post - love of food definitely runs in the family! Now I just need my sister to do one...
LOVE the idea of little brother guest posts! One little problem, however - the food looks too good, and I don't get to try it. Does little brother do overnight shipping from the Philippines?
Ha! You know, some of it just might keep...I bet there are some really great places out by you that do similarly delicious stuff, I just don't know about them. I hope Jim does more guest posts - it's funny, I don't think he wrote this thinking it would be a post, but when I read it, I had to put it up. It was just too perfect.