Noodling Around – Revisits to Minh Ky and Pho King

It's been noticeably cooler the last couple of days. So, I thought I'd grab some noodle soup. As my post on Tu Thanh indicates; I'm trying to refamiliarize myself with City Heights.

Minh Ky:

I've done posts on Minh Ky so many times over the years. Though it's been maybe a year and a half since I'd visited. It was 830 on a Saturday morning; I'd be driving up to the office right after. I thought a bowl of egg noodle soup would do the trick, rather than my usual Beef sate Egg Noodle Soup "dry". Not quite knowing what to order; I went with the Combination Egg Noodle Soup.

Things were pretty quiet on this weekend morning. With the staff prepping condiments and stuff.

I couldn't believe the how much "stuff" was in my bowl of egg noodle soup ($6.95). Way too much noodles, I couldn't finish……

Good lord.

Like before; the char siu was decent in flavor if a bit tough. Squeaky fish balls, not a fan of the shredded chicken, he sliced fish cake was pretty good. But lordy, so much noodles! Which were nicely prepared, a bit of crunch and pull to them. The broth has gotten a bit weaker over the years and this was no exception.

I'd never been able to finish a bowl of noodle soup here…..until this day.

Service was a bit friendlier on this day. Maybe because when I arrived, the young lady had her hands full of produce and stuff and I helped her? Maybe that's why I got the jumbo noodle soup treatment?

Minh Ky Restaurant
4644 El Cajon Boulevard
San Diego, CA 92115

Pho King:

Can you imagine; it's been over a decade since that "Pxx Kxxg" Restaurant has been open?

And this parking lot has become just as bad as Minh Ky's right across the street.

I drove by at about 1030 am on a weekend and the place was pretty busy.

Noticed the 'B' in the window and also that when the couple complained about the blower over the door going full blast; the guy took a chopstick out of the receptacle, used it to press the switch to turn it off and returned it right back into the container! And….no one blinked an eye.

I ordered my usual here; the Hu Tieu Mi Kho; but apparently I didn't do a good job ordering and received the Hu Tieu Mi Nuoc. The place was super busy; so I decided to just have my noodle soup.

I'd never really enjoyed the broth at PK in the past, but this was not bad. Not too salty, a hint of pork, with a slight background umami. The fishballs and ground pork (hard for me to enjoy in a soup) were totally routine. The char siu tasted pretty good, but they serve it sliced really thin and almost shredded, so it's hard for me to enjoy. I enjoy the contrast of textures between the slightly crunchy egg noodles and the stretchy rice noodles. I'm also a fan of Chinese celery which is provided, along with bean sprouts.

So maybe I'll start ordering the noodle soups here again……

Pho King Restaurant
4658 El Cajon Blvd
San Diego, CA 92115

Funny thing, I went and did a quick search for previous visits to link to while typing up this post and found the same two 'fer, at least it would have been, if I got what I had intended to order at Pho King. Guess I'm a real creature of habit.