On Roots and Branching Out

11 Sep 2010 Leave a Comment

by Esh in Uncategorized Tags: Filipino/ Chinese food, Ma Mon Luk, Noodles, Quezon Avenue

It’s been almost a year since I, together with some group of friends from college, started this blog for a class assignment. Our last entry was done several months ago, primarily because when our CS30 class ended, we stopped blogging as well. I mean it was just a requirement after all, and we had so many things to do before graduation so there, just like the fate of many other blogs, this one went on hiatus…
Anyway a few days ago I went to an art convention with Jei, one of my dearest and longest friends since elementary, and while I was suggesting where we could eat for dinner she suggested that I should probably start a food blog.

Ms. Jei, the inceptor

After pondering on that suggestion, I remembered this blog which I started with a group of friends, and I also remembered how much fun it was to write about my different food trips. So I figured that I might as well just continue with wikiFEEDya (for those who have known me long enough, yes, the title was my idea haha), since it’s already here.
Food has always been a big part of my life, and wherever I go I make it a point to try out different kinds of dishes. It’s because I believe that food not only nourishes one’s body, but also nourishes one’s experience. There’s so much culture and history that’s integrated in a dish, and I love biting into that.
Sure loving food has always given me some setbacks. For starters, I’ll always be one of those girls who are in constant “battle” with their weights, and I will always be a bit insecure come summer and beach time. But what the hell, love’s like that. Something’s gotta give right? I’ll just have to try my best to integrate as much exercise and proper diet into my passion for searching for the miraculously yummy haha.

To kick off the reactivation of this blog, I’d like to share a simple and yet very memorable experience. A few Sundays ago, I had lunch with my parents and my youngest sister Angel in a restaurant called Ma Mon Luk in Quezon Avenue. To be honest, I was a bit excited to go there because I’ve heard a lot about it. In highschool, we even had to recite a piece where it was cited (Ang Kigilagilalas na Pakikipagsapalaran ni Juan Dela Cruz), so I was really looking forward to trying it out.

The restaurant’s name, Ma Mon Luk, is derived from the name of its founder. Ma Mon Luk was a migrant from China who moved to the Philippines in the early 1900s. He used to peddle noodles in Manila, and later on founded the Ma Mon Luk restaurant which was already nationally renowned by the 1950s. So there, that’s pretty much what I learned from googling it to get some history haha.

Moving on, it was a pleasant surprise to enter Ma Mon Luk for the first time. That’s because the whole place really looks like it has not changed for years.
It was like I was entering into an actual page in history. There were faded film pictures of famous actors and actresses, and newspaper clippings of old articles written about Ma Mon Luk hanging on its walls. They didn’t have air-conditioning and only had a handful of menu items to choose from, all of which were written on a chalkboard which was also hanging on the wall.
After all these details struck me, I started appreciating the ambience of Ma Mon Luk. The whole restaurant seemed untouched by modernity.

The Menu

I blend in haha

So we ordered their Original Mami, Asado and Chicken/Salted egg Siopao, Pancit Canton and Siomai. Too bad, the Fried Chicken and the Lumpiang Shanghai were not available. The pricing was reasonable, and the food was okay. Somehow I felt the noodles lacked flavour haha, or maybe I’m just really used to the MSG taste I get from the noodles of fast-food chains haha. My personal favourite among all of the things we ordered in Ma Mon Luk were the Pancit Canton, and the Siopao.

Pancit Canton

Siopao

Original Mami...I just love saying that haha

angel looks satisfied

so does my dad..

Overall it was a really good experience, definitely worth going back to. Not only for merienda’s sake, but also as a good way to relive times gone by. I believe this is especially true nowadays when the world is rapidly changing, and things are getting more complex, fast, and style-savvy by the minute.

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