MU Noodles Bar

Finally, a perfect hit!  After heaps and heaps of meal disappointments in the past couple of weeks, I've finally had a meal that I walked away happy from.

I thought last night was going to the shitter, like most nights.  My master was his usual obnoxious self and wouldn't even give me a deserved break that was almost four months overdue.  After knitting my eyebrows for a good 15minutes, I decided to accompany the significant other to San Juan.  I might as well take an extended dinner over there, I thought to myself.  The SO was asked to pick up a P300K bag for a friend.  Yes, P300,000 for a frigging handbag.  I don't care if its Hermes, or Balenciaga, or Bench.  No bag is worth that money.  Hehehe.  Sez me who can't afford it.



After getting the bag from some movie star (the movie star is married, and I don't care much for married women, no matter how sexy they are), we decided to wak to where the restaurants are in Wilson St.  We had to pass through this really dark section of San Juan, and while I put on a don't-really-care attitude, my mind was starting to wander to the twilight zone.  Good thing that there were cars passing so somehow the very dark portion of the street was always illuminated.

Turning left to where the Center For Asian Culinary Arts is located, we first spotted Cafe Ysabel.  Too formal I thought, and I was only wearing slippers so scratch that.  Then there's that Taiwan Street Food Joint, and another Chinese resto up ahead.  I was almost persuaded to go for the Chinese resto but looking to the left I saw MU Noodle Bar with its heavy looking wooden door.  I kinda liked that door with the 'OPEN' sign stuck to it.  As I am a noodle freak, there was no question that I would choose MU.

MU stands for Manchester United, or Mag-Un or whatever you fancy it to be.  But what really got to me was the noodle bit.  The SO has already had dinner so she said I just order for myself, which was an open invitation to paaarty!  I kinda over-order when I'm in a restaurant, so the SO was keeping a close watch.

I went straight to the Noodle section of the menu and immediately liked what I saw; choice of thin or thick noodle, miso or shouyo soup base.  I knew right there and then that these guys mean noodle business, which is my kind of business.  I asked for the Char Siu noodles, Miso soupbase and Ramen noodles.  I'm not too fond of udon so Ramen was perfect.  I couldn't just order one dish so I also got the Beef Kenichi.  Kenichi reminds me of SamuraiX, and beef, as far as I'm concerned is the best meat in the world.  I just don't know what Beef Kenichi is.

The first to arrive was the Char Siu noodle in a big assed bowl.  I didn't know whether to slurp the soup or wash my face in it.  The latter I quickly dismissed when I saw that the soup was still boiling, which was weird.  Turns out the bowl was made of stone or ceramic which is a very good heat conductor.  Heat the ceramic long enough and it will stay hot for a looong time, hence the continued boiling of the soup.  The SO commented that something smells good which turned out to be the sesame.  The soup tasted good, the noodles springy, and the pork slices were tender.  Everything was as expected.

The revelation however was the Beef Kenichi.  The meat was tenderly steamed in light soy sauce and paired with fresh cucumber.  They also made sure that they use beef with tendons running through it which literally melted in my mouth.  It was awesome.  When the taste in my mouth gets a little heavy, I chew on a cucumber slice which cleansed my palate and I'm back to popping those beef slices in my mouth.  Really, really good meal.

We went to MU at around 845pm.  A time when most folks are done with dinner so that could have explained why there weren't a lot of guests, which was good as there would be fewer spectators to the stupid faces I was making in response to the various delights MU's food was giving me.

The SO said that I'd probably be going back there time and time again.  I don't think she's wrong.