Kwaytiao Khae

Today for lunch I had a fat bowl of the unpronounceable Thai-Chinese noodles mentioned above. I used to be anti-noodles, but lately I've been trying some of the noodles I've avoided in the past and am actually liking them. (I'm still convinced, however, that Thailand's noodle dishes are the weakest in Asia! I'd much rather have a good Burmese mohinga, a Lao pho, or virtually any noodle dish in China--especially those of Yunnanese or Szechuan origin.) Kwaytiao Khae is a simple noodle dish, but is somewhat hard to find here. It's basically a bland, clear broth served with rice noodles and a variety of southern Chinese-style pork, shrimp and fish balls:


















The shop is really close to my house, and the owners are nice people who look more Chinese than Thai! The soft noodles are dipped in the boiling broth before being added to the soup:


















There are a great variety of noodle dishes in Thailand, but the majority are eaten with the same repertoire of condiments: dried chilies, fresh chilies in vinegar, sugar, fish sauce and ground white pepper:


















Norng Paeng is eating the extremely-popular-in-Bangkok dish, yen taa fo. It's pretty much the same as kwaytiao khae except that the broth is red from the addition of a kind of soy bean product, and it is served with parboiled morning glory, an acquatic vegetable popular in central Thailand: