Noodles with cuttlefish (Hủ tiếu mực)

One of my friends asked me to try this noodles for several times, but by some how I didn't decide when as it's quite far from my place - in Phú Nhuận district and they do serve this cuttlefish noodles only in the morning for breakfast! Do I need to go that far only for the noodles?
But actually one of the reasons I didn't go yet because I thought it would be the way they prepare the soup noodles with the dried cuttlefish, as many places do, to get a natural sweet taste! But not, I was wrong!

                     Noodles with fresh cuttlefish, shrimp, meat ball...taste amazing! 

This morning we had a bike ride to Cu Chi, to our "newlywed" friend's country house, so before heading to the long ride, my friend offered everyone this noodles as his treat! So why not! Let's go!

              To my surprise, it was the noodles with fresh cuttlefish...

We came here quite early, around 7:00 am, it was still holiday, all streets still empty, so we did enjoy riding in the morning freshness, and now ready to taste the good noodles. Actually, the way they prepared the noodles very similar to how people in Chinatown prepare the Chiuchow porridge (cháo Tiều). They cook fresh cuttlefish, meat ball separately in small frying pan, then add some quail eggs...

                      The chef was going to add the quail egg...

                         Each portion with two eggs, two big meat balls and a lot of cuttlefish...

                      The boiling soup was pouring into the bowl with noodles, now ready to serve! 

                         The tiny quail egg from my bowl, special portion with extra shrimp! 

The soup was excellent - sweet taste obviously came from the seafood, not sugar taste. It was light and simply good. I did add a lot of veggies, but the taste still good, especially the tangho (tần ô) went quite well with this soup, same as Hủ tiếu Nam Vang. 

                      Never forget to add the favourite veggies...esp. tangho! 

                     Quite many cuttlefish for each portion...

                      Better dip cuttlefish into this green sauce - fresh lemon sour flavour, sweet, spicy...

                       All staffs in the uniform with a logo - Old man from Cali - Cuttlefish noodles! 

All the staffs, from the chef to the waiters in the uniform with quite interesting logo "Old Man from Cali", one of my friends quickly made a comment "It's similar to KFC (!?). I did ask a waiter who is this old man, but I didn't get a right answer, so just guessed the owner probably used to live in US, now back to Vietnam to set up this new-style noodles! This good food just made the list of the variety of noodles in Saigon a bit longer, I was wondering how many kinds of noodles we have now - it could be interesting to list it down! Next time!