A taste of the world in one place.
You may have missed half of your college life in UP if you haven't been to Maginhawa, Quezon City, where it offers a variety of Filipino, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, and even Persian cuisine. And so, my good friend Kat and I have decided that we would explore every corner of Maginhawa before we graduate from UP.
Kat recommended that we start with Caution Hot! Spicy Noodle House in Teachers' Village, because they offer authentic spicy Chinese noodles which comes in different flavors and degree of hotness.
The menu is very simplified and easy to understand: you will first choose your toppings--all-veggie, pork, beef or seafood. Then you get to choose your broth: Szechuan, which is a southwestern Chinese spicy broth made with Szechuan peppercorn and chili pepper; Asam Laksa, which is a Penang-style sour and spicy fish-paste broth; and Classic, which is a non-spicy savory pork bone broth.
For the next step, you get to choose what type of noodles you would like to match with your toppings and broth: either Wheat Noodles, which are firm regular-sized noodles or Egg Noo
dles, which are thin wheat-and-egg noodles with the vibrant flavor of egg.
Finally, you can choose the degree of hotness for your spicy noodles: it was amusing that they likened it with the "degree burn". For starters, you can choose first-degree burn and for those who are in for a challenge of their palette, there is the Ultimate Burn.
Kat and I ordered Pork-Asam Laksa-Wheat Noodles with a first degree burn spicy noodles. I am not a very big fan of spicy food, but I enjoyed eating the noodles, which was garnished with onions cucumber strips, pineapple bits, greens and boiled egg. You could see the level of hotness of the noodles by just looking at its bright red-colored soup. The pork was tender and juicy at the same time and the pineapple bits neutralized the spiciness of the noodles.
For my "fire extinguisher", I ordered Soya (P45/ P70-unlimited). It was refreshing and it really calmed down my burning mouth that I almost sip my Soya every after I ate the noodles. I just couldn't imagine if we ordered the Ultimate Burn level of spiciness of the Chinese noodles.
We also ordered Kuchay-Pork Dumplings (5 pcs-P60/ 10pcs- P110), which are made of minced Chinese chives and pork. It is quite different from the regular dumplings because there were more Chineses chives mixed with the pork in the dumpling.
Finally, to cool down our burning faces from the Spicy noodles, we ordered their signature dessert Bao Bing (P95), which is a classic Chinese shaved ice dessert, topped with fig and grass jelly, fruits like lychee, drizzled with condensed milk, and topped with a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream. It was truly a refreshing way to end the meal. I particularly enjoyed the fig and grass jelly along with the lychee fruit bits which gave the right sweetness of the dessert. And the shaved ice was truly authentic.
Caution Hot! Spicy Noodle House is a must-try especially to those who loves spicy food and noodles. I will definitely come back for more and try their other noodle combos.
You may like their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/cautionhotmnl?fref=ts.
