Hungrygrrl

Last week I dragged Dave out for lunch in the ID. I’ve been wanting to try Mike’s Noodle House ever since I heard they import their noodles from Vancouver. Mike’s is around the corner from Jade Garden, right in the middle of the action.

Luckily Dave had grabbed a table because it was packed. I could see the women making soup through the glass.

We decided on sui kau with beef brisket and spicy pork with baby bok choy. The sui kau were packed with shrimp and pork and had a good fresh flavor. The beef was a bit on the fatty side, but soft and easy to pull apart. The broth it came in was terrifically meaty. I prefer the beef broth at Szechuan noodle bowl, but it’s just because of the star anise.

The noodles (you mein) are very fresh and chewy, but I am a fat noodle person. Give me chow fun anytime. These thin noodles feel too dainty.

And the spicy pork? I was underwhelmed. The sauce had little depth and the pork was a bit tough.

All in all it was some solid soup, but I was still hungry so we wandered over to Ambrosia for bubble tea.

I have a lot to learn about bubble tea. There was milk tea, but there were also shakes and fresh fruit smoothies. And any of them could be made bubble tea. There were even jelly additions beyond the usual tapioca–lychee jelly, coconut jelly, green tea jelly.

And the flavors. Taro, red bean, kumquat, lychee, black sesame….even longan.

Cobe and fell in love with longan in Vietnam. It tastes like lychee and looks like this.

I tried the fresh taro with tapioca, Dave had red bean with lychee jelly.

The taro flavor was wonderful, the texture could be a bit smoother. But I drank it down anyway, sucking up the bubbles in my fat straw as we wandered the streets in the sunshine. Succesful ID trip. I’ll be back.

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