One of my favorite foods here is the mild Chinese-style noodle soup called kuaytiaw naam. Kuaytiaw refers to those white rice noodles we're all familiar with in the American favorite, phad thai. At the soup stands you have the option of two or three different noodle widths: sen mee - very thin vermicelli size not always available; sen lek - a bit thicker, the classic phad thai size (about 5mm wide); and sen yai - big 'ol slabs of noodle (about 2.5 cm wide) classically used in dishes like pad see ew. I usually opt for sen lek but I branched out today and ordered mee. Naam translates as "water" or "liquid" as far as I can tell, so saying naam just means that you want the noodles in soup form, not dry (like phat thai, for instance).
The portable noodle stands with bright yellow and red signage are ubiquitous here. it's hard to walk for more than 15 minutes in any direction and not run into one.. good news for me.
The dish, as it's served to you, is basically just a bowl of a mild, vaguely sweet, subtly flavored broth (chicken, I assume) with your noodles, green onions and/or fresh cilantro and small chunks of whichever meat(s) you choose. [Instead of meat I did once have some incredibly spongy cubes of fried tofu, which were delicious though I haven't run across them again, since.]
Something about this warm soup is incredibly appealing to me, even when sitting streetside on a concrete bench in the lunchtime sun. I think it's partly the simplicity and "cleanness" (not referring to hygiene) of the dish, partly the mysterious, subtle, savory flavor of the broth and partly the way you get to tailor the dish to your liking with the available condiment options (chili flakes, sugar, vinegar with fresh sliced chilies and fish sauce).
This particular bowl was served topped with ridiculously tender duck meat, chopped cilantro, a couple of crispy deepfried pieces of some sort of dough (?) and, of course, the omnipresent Thai fish balls. An excellent mid-morning snack to fuel my trip to the market for, yes, more food.
Amelia arrives tonight!
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