- Thaimee at McCarren, in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood, is serving ‘magic noodle salad’
- The $12 dish is the brainchild of Chef Hong Thaimee
- Vermicelli noodles are dyed blue with natural butterfly pea flowers
- A spritz of lime during them purple on the plate
A surefire way to create buzz for your new restaurant: Have a standout Instagram-friendly dish.
That’s how Thaimee at McCarren — which opened last month at the McCarren Hotel & Pool in Williamsburg, Brooklyn — became a must-visit seemingly overnight.
The new Thai eatery features a dish called ‘magic noodle salad’, which is made mostly of color-changing noodles that transform from blue to purple on the plate.
The colorful noodles would be eye-catching even without the color-changing trick, and have quickly popped up all over Instagram.
Also called Yum Woon Sen Dork Un Chun, the $12 dish is the brainchild of Chef Hong Thaimee.
The chef starts with plain vermicelli noodles, which are first soaked in blue dye that comes from butterfly pea flowers.
They are then boiled before being dunked in an ice bath, and look totally blue when they’re put on the plate with tomatoes, mint, shallots, and spicy dressing.
Customers can add meat including lobster, shrimp, and chicken for an additional price.
Finally, when they’re served, the customers gets to work the color-changing matching. With a spritz of lime, the noodles change from blue to purple.
‘If you’re looking for some true culinary magic, look no further than the Magic Noodles from @thaimeeatmccarren,’ wrote one clearly-impressed Instagrammer.
‘I’m telling you, it’s the real deal,’ said another diner, who also called the dish ‘amazing’.