Bustling Bamee Jup Gang is one of Chinatown’s more interesting noodle stalls: a socio-cultural history lesson as well as a cheap, if slightly hectic, meal.

A generations old fixture, its bustling open kitchen and tables stretch down Charoenkrung Soi 23, a narrow pedestrian only soi that leads into one of Chinatown’s oldest shophouse communities, Charoenchai. According to the locals who live here, it originally catered to hungry Chinese coolies in need of a quick, cheap carb and protein fix, namely bowls of bamee (egg noodles) with wontons and slices of red pork. That explains why the bowls here are the streetfood equivalent of a Big Mac Extra
Large meal: much bigger than your average bowl.

Today, the labourers are long gone, and the prices have increased considerably (from a pawltry B 9 in the old days, to B 30 for a big bowl and B4 0 for an even bigger big bowl), but Bamee Jup Gang still does a roaring trade among locals looking to give their energy levels a cheap boost.

Head here at lunchtime, and you can barely squeeze down the alley for all the people queuing for their portion while the main cook, with his Village People-esque handlebar moustache, douses the noodles in a vat heated by a white-hot charcoal fire. Helping him is a factory line of staff, chopping meat, topping off bowls with pork and wontons, delivering them to the tables located deeper inside the alley, or packing portions away into carrier bags for those who order to-go.

It’s not streetfood at its finest or friendliest by any means – people just wolf down their bowl and head on their way – but dining here is certainly an experience; very Chinatown.
บะหมี่จับกัง ซ.เจริญกรุง 23

Street Eat review by Max Crosbie-Jones | Photo: Annabelle Azadé Kajbaf

WHERE Bamee Jup Gang
Charoen Krung Soi 23 | MRT Hualumphong | 089-763-5838 | 8 am – 7 pm