Rung Rueang Pork Noodle

In my multiple trips to Bangkok, I was never introduced to this shop for their famous pork noodles which is apparently extremely popular with locals. For over 50 years, Rung Rueang has been serving dry and soup versions of pork noodles to the locals and the shop only started to gain traction with foreigners and tourists after it was featured in the 2018 Michelin Bib Gourmand Guide

Located along the side streets of Sukhumvit, it is a 5 mins walk from Phrom Phong BTS. You can spot the shop from a distance based on the crowd of food delivery drivers and vehicles parked right in front of the shop to collect their orders

Spanning 2 storefronts, the corner store on the left is run by the original while the one on the right is by the owner’s daughter. The corner store is smaller in size and can house fewer customers as you can tell from the pictures. We were lucky to be able to get a table at the corner shop

They cook the noodles right at the entrance of the store and you can see the staff dealing with steaming hot soup and assembling the noodles for the orders of different tables. The menu is simple here with only 4 choices; tom yam soup noodles, tom yam dry noodles, clear soup noodles or clear dry noodles. You can also choose the type of noodles from glass noodles, egg noodles, and thin or wide rice noodles. For toppings, you can choose between fish only, fish and pork or pork only. The noodles are very affordable from THB 50 for small, THB 60 for medium and THB 70 for the large

I ordered the small size for both the soup and dry versions to try out the difference. I did not go for the tom yam flavours since I wanted to taste the original flavours of the noodles. The small was really bite size and if you are looking to fill your stomach, go for the large. As we were going for multiple meals, this size was just great as a tasting plate. I ordered the fish and pork version which had fishballs, fishcake, minced pork meat, pork liver as well as beansprouts and spring onions. The noodles were perfectly cooked with a springy texture and while it looked bland, the sauce was extremely flavourful and packed with umami explosion. It was savoury yet not overly seasoned and you could taste the natural sweetness of the pork and fishballs. The ingredients were fresh and delicious

The soup version has the same toppings and was equally good as the soup packed a punch with the deep flavours of pork as a result of hours of cooking the soup and blanching the ingredients of hundreds of bowls of pork. There was no nasty pork flavour in the soup but only deep sweetness from the meat which was very comforting when eaten together with the noodles

Overall, many people compared this to the Singapore version of Bak Chor Mee but I think it is very different due to the sauce and gravy used to season the noodles. I am not sure how they made the dry version so savoury and delicious without the use of too much soy sauce, dark sauce or chilli but I will choose this over a bowl of bak chor mee anytime

Address: 10/3 Soi Sukhumvit 26, Khlong Tan, Khlong Toei, Bangkok 10110, Thailand

Operating hours: 8 am to 5 pm