We discovered a new restaurant along the little street of Benavidez near Hope Christian High School. On the first look, it is somewhat similar to Lan Zhou La Mien but smaller and brighter.
We've already pass across this place a couple of times already but wasn't interested to try as there was always a few people eating inside. One reason might be the Chinese signage which might be intimidating for those who doesn't know the language. The banner reads 港式達人清湯腩 (Gǎng shì dárén qīngtāng nǎn) which translates to Hong Kong Beef Brisket Clear Soup Expert. Anyhow tonight we were in the mood for some beef noodles so we thought might as well try something new.
Here is the menu:
Their crew told us that the best seller is the Wonton & Beef Brisket with Noodles. We decided to order the Wonton Beef Brisket Noodles, Beef Brisket with Rice Noodles and Vegetable with Oyster Sauce (not in the menu, 90 php).
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| Wonton & Beef Brisket Noodles |
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| Beef Brisket with Rice Noodles |
As simple as the food looks, so does the taste. The soup seems to be the result of a long process of boiling the beef and getting rid of the fats - clear and without any strong taste of the beef or the radish. The soup is also quite bland, possibly the result of it having no MSG (as stated at the bottom right of the menu) and us nothing being used to clear soup based beef noodles.
At first look the bowl of noodles looks small as compared to others but as we eat further we've noticed that there were less noodle but MORE beef. The Wonton and Beef Noodle Soup I ate had around 8 strips of beef, which is quite rare. The wonton also is mostly meat and tasted fresh - which was great.
Nothing special with the vegetable with oyster sauce, just boiled lettuce with no seasonings. The oyster sauce was the right partner for this.
The overall experience was like eating at home with your Chinese mom's cooking. Just natural, less salty and MSG free food unlike the typical Chinese restaurant which is usually oil, salty and has tons of seasoning.
If you guys have eaten here before, let us know in the comments below!
港式達人清湯腩 - Hongkong Beef Brisket Expert
Benavidez St., Sta. Cruz Manila
Right across Security Bank and Hope Christian High School
