Me Sen Thai Noodle House and Sizzling House & Noodle Revisited

Here are a couple of revisits to places that have recently opened. One was a revisit to try a dish they were out of on previous visits; the other a couple of coworkers wanted to check out.

Sizzling House & Noodle:

**** Sizzling House has closed

So, Calvin and Richard wanted to meet up for lunch. After going thru some of the newer places in the Convoy area; they decided to meet up at Sizzling House & Noodle.

Well, one thing was for sure….I wasn’t going to have the A5 Wagyu again! I had fully intended on getting the rice with pepper sauce and shrimp. But, I ended getting what Calvin and Richard ordered; the basic beef with pepper sauce. ($17.99) I did get it with udon to see how the noodles held up and of course an egg ($1.99 upcharge).

Of course, the friendly neighborhood robot delivered our plates.

Which were “shielded” by the cardboard crown to prevent splatter.

   First off, I actually thought the basic “wagyu” (heavy on the quotes) beef, while rather scarce was cut thinner, thus seemingly more tender. I liked the thin slices of oyster mushroom, which added a nice sweet-earthiness to the plate. To me, that egg is a must.

The standard gravy boat of pepper sauce was provided. For some reason, it seemed sweeter than on my previous visit. To me, the tangy-sweet flavors overpower the pepperiness.

As for the udon, well, the texture was decent, good pull, mild chewiness, though some of the noodles were stuck to the pan, which I guess wasn’t “oiled” enough.

And like before, there just didn’t seem to be enough sauce to coat the starch…at least to satisfy me.

Well, at least I got to try this place out again, without spending over $40. I’m kind of done with this “fad” for now.

Sizzling House & Noodle
4698 Convoy St. Suite 107
San Diego, CA 92111
Current Hours:
Mon – Thurs 11am – 3pm, 5pm – 930pm
Friday            11am – 3pm, 5pm – 10pm
Saturday       11am – 10pm
Sunday         11am – 930pm

Me Sen Thai Noodle House:

I found myself at 99 Ranch Market on Clairemont at around 945 or so and once I’d finished shopping, I looked over to Me Sen, which was still quite empty, and decided to see if they had the dish that they had been out of on my visit back in April.

And yes, they had the Khao Mun Gai ($13.95) available. So, I took a seat and placed my order to the very nice woman working.

It was a short wait, but soon enough my Khao Mun Gai arrived.

   Which smelled heavenly. It came with a bowl of broth that had decent cilantro – white pepper tones, but was quite salty. And the dipping sauce, which did have a bit of spice was not my favorite as I prefer the Hainanese style white, ginger-garlic, pungent style sauce.

My favorite part of the dish was the rice, which was so fowl-ly delicious, as if it had stolen the soul of that chicken! It had just the right amount of salt and was cooked perfectly. The portion of rice was rather large, which I actually appreciated in this case.

    As for the chicken; well it was deboned, making it easy to eat, while being very moist and tender. It was a bit on the milder side in terms of flavor though. Again, if I had that ginger-garlic based sauce, I’d have been really happy. I ended up making sure I had some  “chicken soul stealing” rice and chicken in each bite.

To me, it’s hard finding a good Khao Mun Gai/Hainan Chicken Rice in San Diego and this comes pretty close. Along with the friendly service…..even in the face of some kinda rude “typical 99 Ranch” customers, and the decent price, I’ll definitely return for this, and even the noodle soups I’d had here before.

Me Sen Thai Noodle Shop
7300 Clairemont Mesa Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92111
Current Hours:
Daily 10am – 9pm