Nai Soi – 40-Year-Old Beef Noodles with an Amazing History

Is searching for the best beef noodles on your Bangkok bucket list? Or have you not had your first mindblowing bowl of beef noodles yet? Then, you might want to check out Nai Soi. Filled with hints of its long history, this charming eatery has a simple, no-frills menu that offers several variations of beef noodles. The concrete floor, metal tables and plastic stools seem to take customers back in time to when Nai Soi first started out decades ago.

Located on Khao San road, Nai Soi has gained popularity among backpackers and Korean tourists for some reason.

The view of the cauldron full of beef stock and hot steam whetted our appetites. The Soup Braised Beef Noodles consists of a generous amount of braised beef, kang kong, fried garlic and thin rice noodles sitting in a hot broth. We also ordered a dry version which came with meatballs, as well.

Between the two, we all preferred the former. The lightly-flavoured broth, fragrant garlic and al-dente rice noodles formed a very cohesive flavour profile that left us craving for more. Several condiments such as chilli flakes, vinegar and chilli are available should you wish to add them to your noodles. For the dry noodles on, the sauce wasn’t as tasty as we had hoped for. Furthermore, the rice noodles in the dry version clumped together in just minutes, so this is a dish that you want to tuck into as quickly as possible!

More importantly, the tender beef chunks were really yummy. Nai Soi is also pretty generous with the beef — every mouthful will definitely contain some!

Nai Soi warrants a visit should you be in the vicinity. However, I don’t think the beef noodles deserves the extra mile of travelling. Despite that, Khao San road, also known as “the centre of the backpacking universe”, is an interesting place to check out, even if not for the beef noodles.

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