Wednesday, January 13, 2016

The Seriously Special Siam Super Soup Shop

Nestled between a gold jewellery store and an empty building is the Siam Noodle Shop. It lies beneath the shadow of the overhead Bangkok Skytrain track and partially spills out on to the sidewalk in front. And it has become the latest hot dining spot in Bangkok, at least for our family.

The soup shop is long and narrow and is the width of two adjacent bowling alley lanes. Attractive decor, colour coordination, and curb appeal are sorely lacking. Seven sturdy wooden tables are each surrounded by four hard square-seated stools, and topped with a metal box of spoons and chopsticks, four sauces, a pad of napkins and several bottles of water for purchase

The half a dozen menu items are written on the wall in Thai, so we have learned to order in a more practical way. We walk up to the front of the shop and point at what we want in our soup. There are always the same choice of six different noodles, bits of beef and pork, fish balls, bean sprouts and a mixture of green flavouring veggie stalks. Once you finish pointing, you just sit down at a luxury table and wait three minutes.

The cook fills a small wire mesh cup on a long handle with your noodle choice and drops it into the giant kettle of boiling water sitting over a propane heater. Your selection of gourmet accoutrements is spooned into a good size bowl and a large cupful of hot beefy broth is added from the second monster pot in the “kitchen”. When your noodles are tender, all of your choices arrive at your table in one steaming hot soup bowl. 

Our first venture into this unassuming and rather dodgy looking soup kitchen was tentative, but now we head over almost every other day. From 8:00 am until midnight there is a steady stream of clientele, almost all Thai. I have never walked past the place when it was without a customer - morning, noon or night time!

To accompany your delicious soup there are little packets of deep fried pork rinds (Piggy Puffs in Canada) and your choice of water or pop to drink. The menu is minimal, but I figure with about ten different ingredients and four sauces it is possible to creatively order and eat a different soup combination every day for at least a year! 

When you are finished slurping, the “owner” arrives with calculator in hand and calculates your bill and shows it to you. Today we had five bowls of soup, a water and a piggy puff. Total bill $10. Basically, a two dollar bowl of soup that was simply delicious!

If I had three meals of soup a day, every day for a year, it would only cost me $182 a month. And that would probably be a better diet plan than the Subway turkey sandwich plan and, of course, a lot cheaper!


It once again illustrates that you can’t judge a book by its cover or a soup shop by its ambience or lack thereof!

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