Ted's Lapaz batchoy is said to be the authentic Lapaz batchoy, if we'll believe the write-up of their advert poster. Then again the owner is said to be one of these so called originator of this local noodle soup, whether that has any substance to it's claim is still debatable.
To those unfamiliar to the dish, La paz batchoy is a Pilipino noodle soup dish that had it's roots in Lapaz dist. Iloilo city, mid-south of the Philipines. It's a bowl of pork and beef broth with fresh egg noodles, topped with chopped pork meat, liver, offals and crispy toasted garlic and pork cracklings.
I've never consider Lapaz batchoy as a full dish in itself. I treat it as something between a snack and a lite meal. Comfort food that one partakes usually at street food stalls when one is on his way to school/work. A lot of us Filipinos also take it as a side soup dish along with a main entree.
Now Ted's Batchoy is not something spectacular or even memorable, but it has all the basic essentials of a bowl Lapaz Batchoy that we've grown to used. Reminds me of those really old fashion ramen bars in Tokyo, their bowls unadorned and basically simple.
Their soup hearty but not salty, unlike other Batchoys being sold around. The noodle is partly dry fresh egg noodle that suits the dish strangely well. Using fresh Cantonese style noodles like one used in ramen seems, to me, is not that suited to this fatty pork laden soup. The salt semi-dry noodle strength is in it's inability to absorb the soup into it, making it's taste separate and texture distinct from the soup. It's like having two meals at one. Such idea to a noodle soup bowl is blasphemy to true Ramen lover, but to La paz Batchoy it works unusually quite well.
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