Rich and Red: A “Caution Hot Spicy Noodle House” Review

I went back to Teacher’s Village this weekend and I noticed how it has become a more diverse foodie haven, with lots of new and innovative restaurants popping up in almost every corner. It’s been some time since I went back to our apartment there so aside from the sudden urge to go on a foodtrip along Maginhawa street, I also felt a bit nostalgic and reminisced the good ‘ol college days.

But of course, you can’t visit Maginhawa and leave without gobbling up some good food. One of my foodie buddies told me that he heard some good stuff about Caution Hot Spicy Noodle House(which wasn’t there the last time I visited Teacher’s Village), so we figured it may be a good time to visit.

Technically it can’t be a part of my Maginhawa Food Trip because it’s along Magiting Street, right in front of Ministop. They just opened last October 2014 but just as my buddy said, word has been going around that it’s a must-try if you like spicy food.

They’ve got a one-page, no-nonsense menu. When you’re having noodles, they let you become creative and create your own noodle-dish by choosing your TOPPINGS (All-Veggie, Pork, Beef, or Seafood), then the BROTH (Szechuan, Asam Laksa, Classic), the NOODLES (Wheat or Egg Noodles), and finally the BURN, which is how hot you want your dish to be:

1^ST DEGREE BURN – 2^ND DEGREE BURN – 3^RDDEGREE BURN – ULTIMATE BURN

Reading these out in the menu made me ask what I got myself into K

They had a few recommendations about which combinations to have. However, the nice lady taking our orders (points for customer service!), suggested that I have a Seafood – Szechuan – Egg Noodles combination because it’s one of the best-sellers. My buddy on the other hand had Beef – Asam Laksa – Wheat.

My noodle dish is a colorful mix of shitake mushrooms, fried egg, spring onions, garlic, and bok choy leaves. The seafood comes in the form of shrimps, thinly sliced squid, and bite-sized pieces of dory. I have to say that they have very generous servings of noodles and toppings considering the price, and one order is already good enough for sharing if you’re having other dishes with your meal.

I gobbled up all the toppings and broth in no time (I even scavenged some beef strips from my buddy’s order)! I have always liked my noodles to be rich with ingredients that I can munch on and that is exactly what I got. The noodles were also cooked just right for that satisfying slurp. I had 1^stDEGREE BURN as my level of hotness and I’m glad I did because it allowed me to savor all the rich flavors of the ingredients while feeling just the right amount of spiciness at the same time.

I also suggest that you start with 1^st DEGREE BURN since you can “upgrade” to a higher level of BURN anyways. My foodie buddy though, was a different story…

I don’t want to be stereotypical but my foodie-buddy and occasional photographer is Bicolano, and I have a theory (even though he denies it) that this is a factor why he was extra-excited to visit Caution Hot. I’m guessing you already have an idea what level of hotness he chose – the ULTIMATE BURN *shivers*

Swimming in his sour and spicy fish-paste broth are cucumber strips, pineapple bits, red garlic, boiled egg, bok choy, and spring onions. It also had Taiwanese beef slices for the meat, which also went very well with my Szechuan. Of course, I also had to try his dish so I can check out the taste – but I only managed to have one spoonful because it’s SO DAMN HOT! They definitely weren’t kidding when they named the ULTIMATE BURN because that one spoonful was enough for me to fan my mouth and gulp up more than half of my drink. This has got to be the hottest noodle-dish I’ve tried!

Now the Asam-Laksa is already a bit reddish on its own but you may notice from the pictures that our dish was extra bright red, and that was primarily because of the substantial amount of chili oil and chili powder mixed with the broth (there were actual chili bits too!). My buddy said (with sweat building up on his forehead) that it has been some time since he had something this hot and this good at the same time…and this is coming from a Bicolano!

Now even though both of our dishes were extremes (the least hot and the most hot), they were still fiery enough for us to “small the anghang” when it was served, and ask for another batch of napkins to wipe our lips. We knew we needed some “extinguishers” to tame down the heat. Milk should be a good nullifier so we each asked for a glass of freshly brewed Oolong Milk Tea to refresh our palates. We would have also wanted to try the Tsingtao Beer (Php 95.00)but it wasn’t available at the time.

Now a noodle-dish wouldn’t feel complete until you have dumplings on the side. We asked for an order of Pork Dumplings which tasted decent enough as a companion to our noodles.

We were also curious about the Kuchay Pork Dumplings so we asked for an order of this as well. It’s also good and even though it looks similar to the Pork Dumplings. this has less pork and more on the minced Chinese chives.

With all that heat and spices, our tongues were asking for a refresher. We asked for the Bao Bing as our dessert, which on first impression is like the fancier Chinese version of our local Halo-halo. The finely shaved ice (all shaved-ice desserts should be like this!) is surrounded by fig and grass jelly, lychee, mangoes, and coconut shreds; all bathed in condensed milk and finally topped with three thick and creamy scoops of vanilla ice cream, and garnished with mint leaves.

We didn’t mix this one up like our traditional halo-halo. Instead, we explored the treats individually and mixed them with the shaved ice and ice-cream. It’s like having several desserts in one!

Now that was a satisfying meal! In case you’re wondering, my buddy did finish his bowl of noodles (I still think the Bicolano genes have something to do with it), with the challenge that he’ll soon be back for more. I’d recommend this noodle house to anyone who’s craving for some good noodles – just be sure that you keep in mind the huge warning that is the restaurant’s name: Caution: HOT!

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