Entree Kibbles: Quảng Noodle (Special) from Mì Quảng 3 Anh Em @ Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam

Tuesday, January 24, 2023

Quảng Noodle (Special) from Mì Quảng 3 Anh Em @ Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam

The one-kilometer, early morning walk from Vien Dong Hotel brought us to our first breakfast in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC); Mì Quảng 3 Anh Em! Problem with Vietnamese is that the characters appear English but they bear no similarity except the pronunciation, which still depends on the intonation.

My basic understanding is that Mì Quảng is a popular local dish that "originated from Quảng Nam Province in central Vietnam", although it's not at the same level as pho, which would be considered a top-rank national dish. Whatever the case, always keen to trying something new (especially when the Great Kon is a companion) and it's heartening to note that this particular shop had 13 branches across HCMC!

Take your cutleries from the sterilized box. We were wondering why the staff members didn't pass us any chopsticks, forks or spoons when they placed our food on the table.

One thing we always ordered in a local restaurant; Trà Đá! It's actually a lightly flavored iced tea that cost only about 3,000-4,000 Vietnamese Dong (roughly 20-30 Singapore cents).

Our meal came with a ton of stuff; a plate of vegetables that I can't identify, a serving of rice crackers, chilli, lime and a few packets of wet tissues.

Mì Quảng Đặc Biệt 3 Anh Em - our bowl of special quảng noodle that also cost the most in the eatery at 75,000N Vietnamese Dong (S$4.20). One look, and I kind of regretted as I singled out one item that I wouldn't put in my mouth; the pieces of intestines.

Squeezing in a lime; which I presume would be the correct way. It would be weird to dump it into my mouth right? However, I could have added it to my Trà Đá to make it iced lime tea.

Honestly, I am not a fan of flat rice noodle (typically known as hor fun), especially when they are boiled. And this Quảng noodle had a thicker, not as smooth texture compared to what I usually have in our little red dot. Broth wise, this was somewhat a semi-wet noodle dish; not entirely dry yet not with the soup filled up to the brim of the bowl.

In addition, the taste of the soup wasn't as rich as I expected it to be and I am thankful to have squeezed in the lime for that punch of zest. It was said to have the turmeric flavor which could, however, been overpowered by the lime. The cracker was bland and guess its purpose was simply to add crunch.

Ingredients wise, there were pork, prawn, fish cake, rib, intestines, quail eggs; interestingly, the fish cake tasted like pork fat! Prawn was nice; if only texture was firmer.

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We literally didn't touch the plate of greenies and as you can see from the photo, I only finished half of my noodle! Maybe it's bias on my side as this shop commanded a superbly good review on Google (4.7).