Pancit Langlang

I shared a Panda Express chow mein copycat recipe a couple of weeks ago, and I realized it’s been months since I last posted a traditional Filipino noodle dish. I have quite a few pancit recipes already on the blog, but there’s a lot more to explore!

I came across this Pancit Langlang on Youtube when I was researching our regional varieties of pancit, and its list of ingredients caught my interest. It’s not uncommon to combine different types of noodles in one pancit dish, miki bihon being a prime example, but the addition of ground pork was a new concept to me.

And the fact that Pancit Langlang is claimed to have been Jose Rizal’s favorite was a selling point for me! Who can resist something so old and so rich in history, right?

Rizal so loved this pancit, he often asked his brother, Paciano, to send him the noodles during his stay in Europe. There’s even a passage in his novel, El Filibusterismo, he wrote about his favorite comfort food!

Mga ginoo; ang pansit-langlang ay siyang sopas na pinakamabuti! —ang sigaw ni Makaraig; —gaya nang makikita ninyo, Sandoval, ang halo ay kabuti, hipon, tiniping itlog, sutanghon, manok, at hindi ko na maalaman kung ano pa. Bilang pamago ay ihandog natin ang mga buto kay D. Custodio; tingnan natin, magpanukala siya tungkol dito!
Chapter XXV- Tawanan – Iyakan, El Filibusterismo

In the book, he actually referred to this pancit as sopas (soup). In my further readings, Pancit Langlang appears not a type of noodle dish but a type of noodle that is similar to our modern-day flat, thin miki.

Various regions in the Philippines have some form or another of Pancit Langlang. Iloilo has a noodle soup version which uses Pancit Molo while Cavite’s similar to the Pancit Mami and Batangas’ is a stir-fried combination of miki and either bihon or sotanghon.