The Thai Boat Noodles recipe is a simple dish you will want to replicate once you taste it in Thailand.
Guai Dtiaw Rua (ก๋วยเตี๋ยวเรือ), or Thai Boat Noodles, is a robust, flavorful Thai-style noodle dish.
You will enjoy this one-bowl dish with relish if you’re a noodle enthusiast.
Hatyai has many street foods for your eating pleasure.
This is my go-to dish to fill hungry tummies whenever I enter Hatyai before heading for the best nibbles at 7-Eleven.
Contents
Types of Thai Boat Noodle
You can choose from several kinds of noodles. I prefer rice vermicelli to Guai Dtiaw.
Sometimes, you can ask for a mix of noodles to communicate this to the staff.
Many of the street food stall staff do not speak English.
Some speak a little Teochew (a Chinese dialect).
To order, you just need to point.
The street food vendors load the authentic Thai Boat Noodles with pork and beef slices, meatballs, braised eggs, and a pig’s liver.
There are some pickled bean curd and some other spices.
A Choice of Soups
There are two types of soups. The dark Nam Tok broth means it contains blood.
Raw cow or pig’s blood is often used in Thailand to enrich regular noodle dishes.
They season the broth with various herbs that make it flavorful.
The soup base has an outstanding balance of all five tastes with an underlying meaty flavor!
If this is too adventurous for you, you can order Nam Sai. You can ask for more spicy gravy when you order.
Authentic Thai Boat Noodle Soup Base
They make the soup base with beef, pork bone, and many herbs and spices.
- lemongrass
- Onion
- crushed cilantro roots
- cloves garlic
- galangal
- pandan leaf
- cinnamon stick
- star anise
- toasted coriander seeds
- white pepper
- soy sauce
- black soy sauce
- fermented soybean paste
- white vinegar
- rock sugar
- salt and
- Pig’s blood
Ask for beef if you are not a pork eater.
Patrons enjoy their meals in the simple interior of a local Thai boat noodle shop.
Plating Your Boat Noodle and Serving
They often sell the noodles in a medium-sized bowl.
The other free salads include raw mung bean sprouts and minty Vietnamese Coriander, which you can add to your liking.
They serve Boat Noodles with super thinly sliced sheets of beef or pork round seasoned with a bit of garlic powder and fish sauce.
The garnishes are:
- Beef Balls (optional)
- Pig blood cubes
- Chinese celery
- Mung Bean sprouts
- Scallions
- Cilantro
- Asian basil (purple stems)
- Fried garlic and shallots in oil
- Chicharon (optional)
Each bowl cost about THB 40.
The price is low for a quick stop to fill your tummy.
Condiments
Every table has different Thai sauces that you can add to the soup for extra punch.
The chili powder can be very spicy if you have a mild palate.
At every stall, you will find plastic-wrapped deep-fried pork Crackling or rind.
A pack of pork crackling costs about THB 15.
You can eat it on its own or add the pork rind to the boat noodle soup before you eat it.
Pork crackling in convenient packets for snacking.
Thai Boat Noodles are small bowls of noodles.
I can finish these in two to three mouthfuls. In the past, the noodles were served from the boats plying the river markets in Thailand.
Often, patrons need to take a few bowls to fill up their tummies.
Review of Thai Boat Noodles
When I travel, I like to eat in tourist areas.
The locals patronize this stall, meaning you need to speak Thai to order your food.
Authentic in flavor and delicious, I finished the last bit of my dark soup before discovering it was made with blood.
It surprised me that it tasted so good.
The darkness of the soup wasn’t from dark soy sauce.
We have a vegetarian friend with us, and the owner quickly soft-boiled an organic egg for him.
The result is a perfect soft-boiled egg, the yolk soft and the white firm.
A generous serving of Thai boat noodles with tender pork slices swimming in a savory broth.
Where to Eat Authentic Thai Boat Noodle?
We found this stall just off the highway after we cleared customs.
The customers are all locals and do not speak English. Our Thai friend ordered the food for us.
If you’re in Bangkok, head to Victory Monument to sample Bangkok’s famous Thai Boat Noodles.
The day I went to the restaurant was jam-packed. As we were starving, we went to a coffee shop for chicken rice instead.
Blog Disclosure: This is a sponsored blog post, and I’m grateful for the opportunity. All opinions expressed are my own. Thank you, Tourism Authority of Thailand, for the media invitation to Dannok.
