Wanton flavor from Wuntunmeen’s wonton

COCONUTS HOT SPOT — Donald Woo Ming Lung found the dearth of proper Hong Kong-style noodle shops in Bangkok to be the ultimate opportunity to combine his backgrounds in design, business and hospitality.

He followed the classic Chinese business model for his upscale shop house restaurant: do one thing, and own it – do it better than anyone else – and build it from the ground up.

Gokfayuen Wuntunmeen is now bringing the classic Hongkie drunk food to Thonglor, and it’s normally open until 2am on weekends. Now the black-clad, fair-skinned throng has a higher-end option to fried chicken carts and 7-Eleven toasties.

Chinese influence of Thailand over the course of more than a century has been so impactful that it’s shaped the palate of the Thai-Chinese people in a way that regional specialties from home have been largely forgotten in a favor of a domestically born, hybrid cuisine. It’s hard to find a bowl of noodles that tastes like, what my dining partner described as a “hint of ammonia.”  

Ammonia, that’s how you know it’s the real deal.

To me, it’s slightly more salty and less sweet than your average Thai bah mee muu daeng. The broth coats the inside of your mouth and lingers, and the color has a deep hue.

To get the exact taste that you’d find in Hong Kong, Wuntunmeen makes the noodles on the second floor of their two-story shophouse. The taste of the domestically made meen noodles have grossly adapted to the Thai palate, making their place in an authentic Hong Kong dish questionable.  As diners on the ground floor slurp down bowl after bowl, there’s an array of shiny stainless steel machines, manned by a small army of noodle-makers toiling away upstairs to ensure that Donald can replicate the Hong Kong recipe.

The namesake wonton meen is a bowl full of noodles made upstairs with a portion of tasty pockets stuffed with minced shrimp and pork wrapped in wonton skin floating around the mix. The bowls are small, and at THB79, they’re a square deal when you’re due for some grub to stave off tomorrow’s hangover. If wontons are too pedestrian for your taste, braised beef brisket and tendon (THB89) or honey-glazed pork (89THB) can also find their way into the soup. The broth is made from flounder, but you’d never know it derived its sweet flavor from this flatfish.

Two more items comprise the five-item menu: shredded pork neck in a chili-tomato sauce and a peculiar noodle dish that features salty toasted shrimp roe that coats the buttery meen noodles. The simple, compact menu is easy to parse and puts diners who might not be familiar with Hong Kong cuisine completely at ease. It’s also comforting when you roll in at midnight looking to put the least amount of effort into eating as possible.


FIND IT:
Wuntunmeen
5pm to midnight
161/7 Soi Thonglor



Reader Interactions

Leave A Reply


BECOME A COCO+ MEMBER

Support local news and join a community of like-minded
“Coconauts” across Southeast Asia and Hong Kong.

Join Now
Coconuts TV
Our latest and greatest original videos
Subscribe on