I was called for jury duty again. I find it to be extremely frustrating. Not because I have anything against my civic duty. I’ve actually served on a jury. I was even the foreperson. I found it actually quite interesting. I just find the process of jury selection so terribly time-consuming and inefficient. It should be quick. But instead, you spend most of your time just sitting. Then you sit some more. And then a bit more. Ok, enough yammering. Eventually, after my belly started eating itself, they excused us for lunch. So I walked myself down to Nooddi. It turns out to be a little local chain, with 6 locations in total in the delaware valley. They have a nice lunch special deal so that’s what I went with. For my soup I got the ravioli soup, which included two shrimp and chicken dumplings, mixed veggies, and a light broth. This was pretty decent. The dumplings were tasty and the veggies were nice and fresh. The broth was very light, not greasy, like typical wonton style soups.

For my appetizer, I got the thai salad (som tam), which was supposed to be shredded cabbage, carrots, tomatoes, and peanut tossed with Thai seasoning lime juice. There was definitely cabbage and carrots, but I had one small piece of tomato and no peanuts. And the thai seasoning lime juice was pretty much just fish sauce slightly watered down a bit. I think they could have done a lot better. And that could have started with giving me a bit more tomato and you know, actually having peanuts. And I tasted no lime. But I’m pretty much a big sucker for any type of cabbage salad, so I still enjoyed it.

For my entree, I went with the Pad Se Ew. Chicken, wide jumbo rice noodles, veggies, and egg, in a sweet soy seasoning. This type of noodle dish is my crack. I just love it so. It’s so easy and simple, with such few ingredients, but they just work so well together. I love the soft earthiness of the noodles and the slight crunch of the lightly stir fried veggies. Although, I’m not a big fan of baby corn. They could have totally left that out! Service was ok. It was a little later than typical lunch time so it wasn’t very crowded. And my food came out pretty quick. It’s a nice option for the downtown Media crowd.

I was hankering to try some cambodian style noodles. I thought I’d never had this before, but then remembered that I had some at Kirirom near Seattle. Sadly, that place is no longer open, but that’s ok, I’m thousands of miles from Seattle. New Phnom Penh is indeed open, and we headed out there to try cambodian style noodles for the first time… at least for my first time in Philly. H/A and his rainbow drinks, which he orders whenever he gets vietnamese/cambodian food. Is this cambodian? Is thish vietnamese? No idea, but he’s into it, and it is crazy looking.
None of us were cambodian, or vietnamese for that matter, so we had no idea what we were doing. When I ordered some noodles, they asked if we wanted bread. H/A talked with her, possibly in chinese, and eventually, they brought out this fried dough stuff. E said it looked like big churros, without the sugar and cinnamon. And it really did. It was basically fried dough that you could just eat on its own, or dip into soup. Greasy goodness.
H/A ordered a chicken and broccoli pan fried noodle dish. This really could have been found on the menu of many different restaurants – chinese, vietnamese, etc., but regardless of what kind of food this was, it was good!
E had wanted a sour seafood soup dish, but unfortunately, the ladies who worked there told us that the chef who could make that had gone home already. Oh yes, we were here on a sunday night, and we were the only ones here. And um, well, it’s not in the friendliest or safest of neighborhoods of south philly. Not that I’m an expert, but I’m just saying. So without being able to get that soup, the lady suggested shrimp and noodles, and E just agreed! And out came this dish with shrimp, chinese broccoli, and side rice noodles. I love food like this. Simple and hearty. Again, who knows what type of cuisine this is. Plain and simple, E found it delicious.
So indeed, I went with the soup, and I wasn’t sure which to order or what any of them were, so I just got the combination noodle. There’s no explanations on the menu either, so I really had no clue. I just took a guess. This is not pho. It’s got rice noodles like pho, and broth, and other stuff. But the broth is not beef based. It’s much lighter. This soup came with liver (um, I skipped), pork, fish cake, and shrimp. It’s a good broth, with a strong smell. There’s no need to adulterate it all, with hoisin sauce, or sriracha, or anything really. Just dump some sprouts in there, maybe put a squirt of lime in there, but that’s really it. It’s just fine as is.

The food here is super cheap. Super good, too. The service? Eh… well, it’s not one of those places you go to for the service. We got our water… way after we got our food. Most of the time, we were left to ourselves. The ladies went back into the kitchen and stayed there most of the time. I kind of think that when we came in, they were disappointed. They probably wanted to go home and here we go showing up and ruining their perfectly good sunday evening. But who cares, it’s a hole-in-the-wall joint in a scary neighborhood with good food. Come out and visit during the day, it’s fun!

New Phnom Penh
2301 S. 7th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19148
(215) 389-2122

Over the weekend of the first snowpocalypse of 2010, I actually wasn’t at home to witness it. Instead, I was in the poconos, where they got about 2″ of snow, as opposed to the 20+” laid down at home. While there, we were treated to some fine home cooked meals. For saturday brunch, we had eggs benedict that M made. How come whenever I try to make poached eggs it turns into a mess, but when M makes them, they’re perfect?

After snowboarding in mostly artificially created snow, we had some appetizers, including cheese and crackers. Everyone was particularly fond of the triple cream blue cheese from trader joe’s. I don’t like stinky cheese of any kind, so I stayed away from it. And who doesn’t like ritz crackers?

Also had some chips and green salsa. These chips tasted like they were guacamole flavored or something? Delicious!

For dinner, we had some of this belgian onion and pepper soup.  It had been made awhile back and the pepper had been stewing for awhile, so it was extremely peppery. Tasty, but peppery.

The main course was a chili. This was also tasty, but a bit on the spicy side. I was fine with the spice, but had to take my time with this. It ended up being too spicy for E, poor thing. She ended up eating a bunch of salad instead. D had added a whole can of jalapenos to this, and man, the hotness had been infused through and through. The sour cream was necessary to cut it, and also, because it just tastes darn good with chili. It was a fun weekend away!