Starting with Kanzhu's Ma La Niu Rou

I set out to take the first post of #100happynoodledays series easy... I did. I thought perhaps a very familiar noodle soup like chicken mami or batchoy can be nice, light but filling broth that symbolizes a fresh start or perhaps an in-your-face hearty noodle dish like pancit cabagan or miki-bihon guisado that is simple yet flaunting... Or better yet something extravagant, not the refined and highly graded but the annoyingly snotty, sometimes pretentious and absurd - spam, cheese and coconut milk ramen or the adobo foie gras pancit - the embodiment of all the wrong things about the coño food scene in the Philippines, but nonetheless I still enjoy. That's the result we all want, right?

But I decided to go with Ma La Niu Rou of Kanzhu. For those who are unfamiliar with it, Niu Rou is a Chinese noodle sou... nah, just google it. But there's no need to go to China to experience the dish, though. Kanzhu has its own version (Hurray for globalization!) and it tastes like a combination of dan dan noodles and ma bu tofu, also spicy but a lot soupy. It's not surprising because those dishes share the same sweat inducing and tongue-numbing Sichuan roots.

I could only guess but I can certainly taste the sesame seed paste and obviously, the chili and Sichuan peppers. This dish is very fragrant, with thick soup and is served with slices of beef and vermicelli noodles (sotanghon), which was a downer at first because I was expecting fresh hand-pulled noodles, but the light bite of vermicelli compliments the robust flavor of the broth.

Choosing an unfamiliar dish to start this series sounds strange but for sentimentality's sake, this dish deserves it.

My #100happynoodledays was born because of Kanzhu's Ma La Niu Rou.

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Ma La Niu Rou

@ Kanzhu Hand-pulled Noodles
104 Nodison Center, Marcos Highway,
San Roque, Marikina City