White Noodles with Fish Curry Sauce
ขนมจีนน้ำยา

The Thai people themselves call them "khanom jeen" which makes you think that it is a kind of Chinese dessert. But really, it comes from a Mon word "kanom jin". When the Thais adopted this dish, they either misheard the name, or just couldn't spell very well. In English, we would call it fermented rice vermicelli. There are a number of different dishes that you can have with these noodles. The one today is called khanom jeen nam yaa. It is a fish curry with wild ginger. There are variations around the country. In the north, they use pork instead of fish. In the northeast, they use dried bird's eye chillies and no coconut milk. And in the south, they use turmeric and dried prawns. This cost us 20 baht for the curry, 5 baht for the noodles and 5 baht for the boiled egg.