chinese street food bowl

This is one of my favorite bowls. Until I found this most of my bowls for noodle and soup are the common ones you find in most Asian store. They are uninspiring, mass-produced to mimic the traditional design but the poor quality gives them away.

I was in the San Francisco's Chinatown two years ago and I saw this lady peddling only a few pieces of kitchenware on a staircase. She obviously did not have a store and just try to make a living as a unlicensed street hawker. These bowls caught my attention because how rough they look and I recognized the common rooster theme of the graphics. Upon closer inspection they are hand made and hand painted. Every bowl is different and the glazing where the hand painted graphics are rough to the touch which raises above the background glazing. Also none of the bowl are uniform in the roundness and have a lot of runout (wobble around the circle). These are the charms of bowls used in the street food of Asia. I snapped up all 6 bowls she had for $3 each.

Whenever I make beef noodle soup I like to serve them in these bowls to recreate the eating experience in Asia. They pair beautifully with the Thai stainless spoon and rough bamboo chopsticks.

This Thai stainless soup spoon is my favorite. I prefer it over the Chinese ceramic one because of the minimal thickness. It is a delight to use. They come 10 in this quaint packaging so characteristic of many classic Thai kitchenware, all for budget crushing $3.50 or so.

left to right - Chinese ceramic, Chinese melamine, Thai stainless, Thai aluminum