COCONUTS HOT SPOT — If you are tired of chain restaurants and dozens of ramen noodle stores in Siam Square, I recommend you head over to Sam Yan and discover the cheapest, yet most filling noodles in the area.
As a Chula senior, “Tee Yai Tomyum” or “Big Brother’s Tomyum” has been my daily stop for lunch ever since I was a freshman. My friends and I discovered this noodle stall at U-Center when it had just opened and heard rumors it served the best tomyum in the area..
Now it’s been open for four years, a long queue of customers, mostly students and local office workers in need of a quick meal, can still be seen every day at Tee Yai Tomyum during lunch time.
The store itself is small, as with all the other stores in the area. However, the layout is open and doesn’t feel too crowded. With five tables on each side, the store is easy to walk through, and you’ll find the charismatic and friendly owner of the shop chatting with customers as he jots down orders.
The standard tomyum bowl starts at just THB35, and just like other usual noodle joints around Bangkok, you can customize your noodles as you want.
Tee Yai Tomyum has a basic range of noodles to choose from, including rice noodles, egg noodles, or glass noodles. Meat options are minced pork, boiled pork, and chicken thighs to top your tomyum.
On my latest visit I ordered the Sen Yai Tomyum Moo Sap (Tomyum flat rice noodles with minced pork — THB45). It’s a big bowl of rice noodles in a clear soup, filled with just enough minced pork and meat balls. The rice noodles are soft, and the soup itself has enough flavour that you don’t even need the extra seasonings on the table.
For a Thai, tomyum is not complete with the crispy topping of Fried Wontons (THB10). There are no meat fillings in these, so you can also eat them like chips as they come with a chili dipping sauce.
Speaking of toppings, you can also add a fried egg to your tomyum for THB10 and a soft boiled egg for THB7, and if you cannot get enough of Tee Yai’s tender pork, you can order a separate dish for THB45, which comes with spicy seafood sauce.
Following my first bowl of tomyum, the Dry Egg Noodles with BBQ Pork (THB50) was my second pick. The egg noodles were soft as always, and the barbeque pork was chewy and tender. This single bowl can fill a big guy like me up to the brim, and I didn’t even have to order any extra toppings.
The chewy barbeque pork here is topped with the same peanut sauce you would find in Kao Moo Daeng Moo Grob (Barbeque and crispy pork with rice — THB45) which Tee Yai also serves.
There has been a long-running joke that this noodle joint put marijuana in their pork, because its tomyum is so addictive, but that has been officially debunked by the owners. The deliciousness and the locals’ addiction to this place is real.
FIND IT :
Tee Yai Tomyum
Opening hours: Every day, 10am – 8pm
U-Center, Chulalongkorn University
MRT Sam Yan
