Forget cereal, I’ll take these spicy breakfast noodles every time

The dish

Khanom chin nam ya, Thailand

Plate up

Pity the Anglo-Saxon world for its lo-fi breakfast choices. Toast, cereal, even bacon and eggs… these carry little flavour, they’re stodge designed to fill a gap until lunch rolls around and the real eating begins. Not so in much of the rest of the world, including Thailand. Picture this to kick-start your day: thin rice noodles known as khanom chin, curled into neat little bundles, topped with a ladle-full of nam ya, a fiendishly spicy curry of minced fish, with pickled mustard greens, boiled eggs, raw green beans and fresh herbs to stir through. Now that is a breakfast. In truth, khanom chin (also spelled khanom jeen) can be – and is – eaten at all times of the day across Thailand, as these noodles provide the perfect base for a wide range of sauces and condiments. Still, a breakfast of khanom chin nam ya is one of life’s great pleasures.

First serve

There’s a small linguistic trick to the name, khanom chin. In the Thai language, “chin” means Chinese, so it’s easy to assume these noodles originated in China. Only, historians believe they were introduced by the Mon people, an ethnic group from Myanmar and Central Thailand. The Mon term for rice noodles is “hanom cin”, literally meaning boiled noodles, words that were altered only slightly to become part of the Thai language. The practice of pounding rice into flour, fermenting it, extruding it and boiling it is thought to have been present in Mon culture for many hundreds of years.

Order there

Every region of Thailand serves khanom chin in a different way; still, our favourite is from the south, with heavily spiced nam ya – try it at legendary Khanom Chin Pa Son, open for more than 30 years, north of Phuket.

Order here