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Noodle Soup Seasonings on Street Cart

Bangkok, Thailand – The day before actually making it to Vanilla Café and the bookstore Sauce, I made a first attempt finding that the place had been closed for an employee party.  Certainly any business is allowed to celebrate its employees, but I couldn’t help feeling a twinge of annoyance that I had traveled all the way out to semi-residential Ekkamai Soi 12 to witness a stream of happy workers scooping up soup and skipping around the gardens, while I looked in on a dark cookbook store with a grumbling stomach like a tropical version of the little match girl.

Luckily for me a quick scan around revealed that there was a noodle soup purveyor literally across the street.  No one would find me huddled in a street corner the following morning.  The place looked popular. Parked cabs lined the street and every plastic stool was filled with a hungry customer working on a bowl of noodles.  While many noodle joints serve different kinds of meat, this place was strictly gai (chicken) as a stack of cooked breasts and thighs in the cart window communicated.  Men lined up at the cart calling sen lek (rice noodle sticks) or sen yai (wide rice noodles) when the noodle man turned his attention to them.  It was sen lek for me and then after a few hack-hack-hacks on a chicken breast, I got my bowl of kuay tiaw gai too.  Like the other customers, I improved on the soy-darkened broth with a handful of holy basil, slices of winter melon, crushed peanuts and a few spoonfuls of dried chilies.  Though I would have preferred the dark meat the guy before me got, I would certainly eat here, rather than Vanilla Café, the next time I’m cruising for cookbooks. 

Kuay Tiaw Gai with Winter Melon and Holy Basil

Kuay Tiaw Gai Vendor