The TamJai Phenomenon

There are a lot of things that have grown on me in life, and one of those things is eating soup noodles. I didn’t eat soup noodles growing up, except for the very occasional bowl of cup noodles (topped with frozen veggies for health reasons) which I ate with a spoon and fork. 

When I moved to Hong Kong, I noticed there were so many kinds of soup noodles. Wonton noodles, Korean buckwheat noodles, ramen, etc. The first time I went to a restaurant and ordered soup noodles by myself, I didn’t even know how to properly eat them. I stole glances at the patrons around me to get some tips, and I realized something interesting. For the most part, people eat soup noodles with two hands. You hold your chopsticks in your right hand and your spoon in your left. Grab a chunk of noodles with your chopsticks and put your spoon underneath to help guide the noodles into your mouth and catch anything if it falls. This method cuts down on splashing by 80% if done well. 

I used to feel very uncomfortable eating with both hands at the same time. While this is different for British people, most Americans are trained to only eat with one hand at a time when using utensils and keep your left hand (or non-eating hand) tucked politely in your lap. Even when cutting food with our knife, we transfer the fork to our left hand, cut the food with the knife in our right hand, put the knife down, transfer the fork back to the right hand, and then eat what was cut. Is this cumbersome? Yes. Does it feel polite after decades of training? Also yes. I am guessing this came about so that we do not “rush” through food, but I’m not really sure. 

Anyway, it took YEARS of eating soup noodles before it didn’t feel weird eating with my left hand. It also took years to even like soup noodles. My first few years, I didn’t like them at all. Then I thought they were ok. I remember the first time I suggested going to TamJai with my coworkers. They had dragged me along so many times, and I had finally cracked! I was actually wanting to go of my own free will!

TamJai is an extremely popular soup noodle chain. Actually, there are two chains, TamJai (the original) and TamJaiSamGo (TamJai Third Brother). People usually have a preference that they are very passionate about. I have been very much in the SamGo camp, but the last time I went to regular TJ’s, I really enjoyed it. I'm not sure how TJs got so popular, but it is. 

The nice thing about TJs is that everything is customizable. You first pick your toppings, then your soup base, then your spice level, and finally your noodles. You can even choose less noodles and get a dollar off! My regular order is pork belly, tofu puff, and chives with Chongqing sour spicy (level 3 less spicy) and normal rice noodles, less noodles. For sides, I like their spicy cucumbers and bandit chicken wings! 

TamJai has also become a pretty good way to describe your spice tolerance to someone. You tell them what level you usually order, and they will know how much spiciness you can take. One thing to keep in mind is that their food can actually get quite spicy! I order level 3 less spicy, and most people will comment on how my spice tolerance is pretty good (for a Hong Konger, that is). On the TJ scale, level 10 less spicy is the least spicy while medium is actually very spicy. A visiting friend did not understand this and ordered medium spice once, and he could not finish it! 

There are the TJ detractors. They say that there are much better noodle places around. That is probably true, but I still am a TJ stan. It’s always there for you no matter where you go. Pretty consistent, pretty satisfying, pretty fast (well, usually; the last few times have NOT been fast). One year I even went there for Valentine’s Day with my coworkers and we got the V-Day sets! Nothing like some level 3 romance with your colleagues. For me, the TJ love is real.