[FOOD] 20150114 Nam Sing Bird Nest 南星魚翅燕窩樓 @ Chinatown, Bangkok

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Bird's nest, or swallow's nest is edible and prized by the Chinese as they believed it possess rich nutrition and healing properties since centuries ago. South East Asian traders often ship these valuable products back in the older days as it is only found and harvested at steep sea cliffs in South East Asia.

Hence, these valuable products, along with shark fins are widely found around Chinatown area in Bangkok as Thailand is one of the producers of bird's nest, along with main exporter, Malaysia.

There are many traders along Chinatown that sell these bird nests, but one must be vigilant when choosing it due to existence of imitation products, usually made of agar. Other than the raw bird nests, some traders or restaurants will serve these bird's nest in soup, often clear soup with rock sugar, which is able to preserve the flavour as well as the nutrition of the bird's nest, despite no direct scientific evidence on the nutrition properties.

You may find cheaper bird nests soup from the street vendors or slightly more expensive ones from the Chinese restaurants. Price ranged from as low as 150 Baht up to 1500 Baht per bowl of these bird nest soup. The price is differentiated by the quality and quantity of the bird nest in the soup.

There are many restaurants serving bird nest soup around and I don't have the time, nor budget, nor tummy space to try one by one. After a quick search online for some reviews online and some consideration, I decided to try the one served by Nam Sing bird's nest, just next to T&K Seafood where I just had dinner previously. Nam Sing is also a Chinese restaurant which serves Chinese cuisine but they mainly promote their bird nest to the tourist passing by instead of their food.

Nam Sing Bird Nest
Soi Phadung Dao, Yaowarat Road Chinatown, Bangkok 10100, Thailand
Nearest MRT Stations: Hua Lamphong Station
Telephone: +66 2 222 6292
Opening Hours: 09:00am until 02:00am (Daily)

TO GO


Nam Sing Bird Nest is just next to T&K Seafood, hence you can just follow my directions in T&K post as below:
Unfortunately there is no direct access via BTS or MRT and most likely you will need to take a cab to reach Chinatown. But be mindful on the peak hours as some taxi drivers may not want to travel here due to the jam, hence, plan your journey ahead to avoid disappointment. 

The nearest MRT station will be the Hua Lamphong Station, which you will need to walk for another 15 minutes to reach Chinatown. Walk along the main street of Chinatown and you won't miss the smell and the scene of busy workers grilling fresh seafood on the grill. Look for the green stall for T&K and Nam Sing will be just next to it.


SPECIALITY



You can see the notice sign board of Nam Sing just next to T&K Seafood. 

Despite Nam Sing being a Chinese restaurant, I hardly see any patrons during my visit and I have no confident on their menu, no idea why. Anyway, I'm here to try bird nests soup only and they have various grade and pricing for the bird nest soup, ranging from 200 Baht up to 1000 Baht.


I ordered a Grade 2 bird nest soup which cost 350 Baht. To be honest, I will not know if they serve me a lower grade one as you can't really tell the difference between the grades from taste. Experienced housewife or frequent consumer of bird nest would probably be able to tell you the difference from the texture or taste, but not me. All I hope is that the restaurant don't con poor tourist like me.


The bird nest is served in a small bowl along with condiments such as gingko, longan and red dates, all processed and cooked in syrup. It goes well with the bird nest soup, giving a sweet addition to the soup. I have tasted bird nest soup before, prepared by my mother with Chinese herbs and also those in bottle packings. To be fair, it doesn't taste bad or good, come on, how can you go wrong with just adding rock sugar? The quantity of bird nest is not generous but still reasonable.

SUMMARY


Overall, it wasn't a bad bowl of bird nest soup. Does it worth 350 Baht? I wouldn't know. Will you get pretty overnight after drinking? Definitely not. It is more for the experience and taste if you never had one before.

Taste
☆☆☆☆
Simple, but towards sweet side.
Value
N/A
No idea, depends on individual
Service
☆☆
Bad service
Cleanliness
☆☆
Little cockroaches crawling on your table.
Opening Hours
09:00am until 02:00am (Daily)
Wifi
Nil
Parking
Limited
Website
https://www.facebook.com/NamsingBirdnest

GPS: 13.740176, 100.510641

farscope

Malaysian lad, engineer by background, banker by profession whom passionate in photography, food and travelling.

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