Wide rice sheets rolled into tubes in a peppery, five-spice pork broth, topped with crispy pork belly, boiled egg and offal. A Bangkok Chinatown night-market icon prized for its intensely peppery, deeply porky soup.
A Thai-Chinese noodle soup with Teochew roots (Chinese 粿汁), famous in Bangkok's Yaowarat Chinatown and documented across Thai street-food references.
A blast of white pepper hits first, warming the throat, then the broth turns deep and savory with five-spice. The rolled noodles are soft and slithery, a foil to the shatteringly crisp pork belly and the rich yolk of a stained egg.
Long simmering of pork bones with white pepper and five-spice extracts gelatin and aromatic warmth into the broth, while frying the braised pork skin separately renders it into crackling that survives the soup.
Variations
Clear broth (nam sai) vs thick dark broth (nam kon), with extra offal, no-offal versions, added crispy pork
On the Palate
Where Guay Jab sits in the Thai flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4
How it's made
8 steps · 30 min
- 160 min
Simmer pork bones with white pepper, five-spice and soy into a broth.
Watch outKeep the broth at a bare shiver, never a rolling boil — a lazy simmer draws out the gelatin clear; a hard boil turns it cloudy and greasy.
- 225 min
Add pork belly and braise until tender, then crisp the skin separately.
Watch outThe skin is ready when it puffs and blisters and rattles hard — if it's still leathery it hasn't rendered enough to stay crisp in the soup.
- 310 min
Boil eggs in the broth so they take on its color and flavor.
- 48 min
Cut wide rice noodle sheets and roll or fold into loose tubes.
- 52 min
Blanch the rolled noodles briefly in the simmering broth.
Watch outDip the rolled sheets in and out in seconds — they're just warming through; leave them and they go gummy and fall apart.
- 63 min
Slice the crispy pork belly and any braised offal.
- 72 min
Assemble noodles, broth, pork, egg and offal in bowls.
- 81 min
Crown with fried garlic, cilantro and a heavy dusting of pepper.
