Every September, right around the first cool evening, the same thing happens at our counter in Promenade Shopping Centre. Someone looks up from the soup section of the menu and asks: “What’s actually the difference between the Vietnamese noodle soups and the Thai one?”
It’s a great question, and it deserves a better answer than “one is spicier.” At Thien Vietnam we cook both every day, side by side in the same kitchen, so we’ve had twenty-odd years to think about it. This guide walks through the four styles of noodle soup on our menu in Thornhill, what makes each one taste the way it does, and how to pick the right bowl for your mood.
The short answer: broth is the whole story
Vietnamese and Thai noodle soups look similar in the bowl. Both start with rice noodles, both come piled with fresh herbs, and both arrive with lime and chili on the side. The difference is almost entirely in the broth.
- Vietnamese soups lean on long-simmered bones, warm dry spices, and fish sauce. The flavour is deep, savoury, and gently sweet. Heat, if any, is added at the table or comes from lemongrass and chili oil in specific regional bowls.
- Thai soups lean on fresh aromatics and acid: lemongrass, lime leaves, chili, and a good squeeze of lime. The flavour is bright, sour, and hot from the first spoonful.
If you remember one thing, remember this: Vietnamese broth is built over hours, Thai broth is built in the last few minutes. Neither is better. They’re just aiming at different parts of your palate.
Phở: the slow, clear Vietnamese classic
Phở is where most people start, and for good reason. Our broth begins before the restaurant opens: beef bones go into the pot low and slow, along with charred onion and ginger, toasted star anise, cinnamon, and cloves. Hours later it’s clear, rich, and fragrant in a way that quietly fills the whole dining room.
The noodles are flat rice noodles. The toppings are beef, in whatever combination you choose. Thien’s Special Phở is the loaded bowl with rare beef, brisket, beef balls, and tendon; classic Beef Phở keeps it simple with thin-sliced beef. Bean sprouts, Thai basil, lime, and chili come on the side so you finish the bowl your way.
Order phở when you want comfort, not fireworks. It’s the bowl for a grey Thornhill afternoon, a head cold, or a first visit. For a deeper dive into every phở on the menu, read our guide to the best pho in Thornhill.
Bún bò Huế: Vietnam’s spicy, lemongrass-forward cousin
Here’s where a lot of people get surprised. Vietnam has its own bold, spicy noodle soup, and it comes from the old imperial city of Huế in the centre of the country. Bún bò Huế uses the same patient beef-bone base as phở, but the aromatics change completely: bruised lemongrass, chili oil, and a touch of fermented shrimp paste give it a red-orange colour and a warm, building heat.
The noodles are different too. Instead of flat phở noodles you get thick, round rice noodles with more chew. On our menu it’s listed as Spicy Beef Noodle Soup, and it’s the bowl our regulars graduate to once they’ve fallen for phở.
Order bún bò Huế when you want heat and depth in the same spoonful. It’s the Vietnamese answer to tom yum, and tasting them a week apart is the fastest way to understand both cuisines.
Thai tom yum: hot, sour, and unapologetically bright
Tom yum is the Thai bowl everyone knows by name, and ours is the one in the photo at the top of this post. The broth is built around lemongrass, lime leaves, mushrooms, and fresh chilies, then finished with lime juice so the sourness stays sharp. It doesn’t need eight hours; it needs the right ingredients added at the right moment.
We serve it over rice noodles with your choice of chicken, pork, beef, or shrimp. Shrimp is the traditional pick and the one we’d steer a first-timer toward, because the sweetness of the shrimp is the perfect foil for all that lime and chili.
Order tom yum when you want to wake up. It’s the bowl for a sluggish weekday lunch, a summer day that hasn’t quite given up yet, or anyone who finds phở a little too mellow. It’s also the reason people searching for a Thai restaurant in Thornhill end up finding us: we’re a Vietnamese kitchen, but we take our Thai bowls seriously.
Satay noodle soup: the prairie favourite we brought east
The fourth style doesn’t fit neatly into either box, which is exactly why we love it. Satay rice noodle soup is a Vietnamese-Chinese hybrid: a coconut-and-peanut broth with a mild, warming chili kick, poured over rice noodles and finished with crushed peanuts and herbs. Think of it as the creamy, nutty middle ground between the clean Vietnamese bowls and the sharp Thai one.
Satay soup was a huge seller at our family’s restaurants in Saskatoon for two decades, and we weren’t about to leave it behind when we opened in Thornhill. It comes with chicken, pork, beef, or shrimp. Please note it contains peanuts.
Order satay soup when you want something rich and a little spicy but not sour. It’s especially good on the first properly cold night of fall, which, in York Region, is never far away in September.
Side by side: how to choose
Here’s the whole guide on one table. Prices are current as of this post; check the menu for the latest.
| Bowl | Origin | Broth character | Heat | Noodle | From |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phở | Northern Vietnam | Clear, savoury, warm spices | Mild (add your own) | Flat rice noodle | $18.95 |
| Bún bò Huế | Central Vietnam | Lemongrass, chili oil, deep beef | Medium-hot | Thick round rice noodle | $21.95 |
| Tom yum | Thailand | Sour, hot, lime and lemongrass | Hot | Rice noodle | $17.95 |
| Satay | Vietnamese-Chinese | Coconut, peanut, gentle chili | Medium | Rice noodle | $16.95 |
A few quick rules of thumb from behind the counter:
- First visit? Beef phở. It’s the benchmark, and it’s also one of our $12.95 weekly lunch specials, so it’s the cheapest way to find out whether we’re your new soup spot.
- Love spice? Tom yum for sour heat, bún bò Huế for savoury heat.
- Feeding kids? Phở with beef balls, or a small wonton soup from the top of the soup section.
- Can’t decide? Order two bowls with a friend and swap halfway. We won’t judge.
And if it’s still warm enough that soup feels like too much, the same grilled meats and herbs show up in our vermicelli bowls, which are the cold-weather-optional version of everything above.
Why one kitchen cooks both
People sometimes ask why a Vietnamese restaurant bothers with Thai bowls at all. The honest answer is that our family has always cooked this way. Vietnamese, Thai, and Chinese dishes have shared a single menu at every Thien Vietnam for more than twenty years, and the overlap is real: the same lemongrass goes into bún bò Huế and tom yum, the same rice noodles carry three of the four soups above, and the same herb plate lands on every table. You can read more about how that started on our story page.
What it means for you is simple. You don’t have to pick a cuisine before you pick a restaurant. Come to Promenade Shopping Centre, sit down, and choose a broth.
Finding us in Thornhill
We’re on the first floor of Promenade Shopping Centre at Bathurst Street and Centre Street in Thornhill, with free parking outside. It’s an easy drive from Vaughan, Richmond Hill, and Markham, and the mall keeps the walk from the parking lot short even once the snow arrives. Full directions, transit tips, and the exact unit are in our how to find us post.
We’re open every day from 10 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., so a bowl of any of the above is rarely more than a few minutes away.
Come Taste It in Thornhill
Hungry now? Thien Vietnam serves Vietnamese, Thai, and Chinese classics daily at Promenade Shopping Centre in Thornhill. Dine in, take out, or order for delivery across Vaughan, Richmond Hill, and Markham.
- Authentic phở and bún bò Huế, with broth simmered from sunrise and recipes refined over 20+ years
- Three cuisines, one kitchen: Vietnamese, Thai, and Chinese
- Open daily 10 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. at Promenade Shopping Centre
- Dine-in, takeout, and GTA delivery
See the full menu to plan your order, or contact us to reserve a table or call ahead at (905) 889-6688. Tell us which broth you’re in the mood for and we’ll take it from there.
Related
- Where to Find the Best Pho in Thornhill — every phở on our menu, bowl by bowl
- Weekly Vietnamese Lunch Specials in Thornhill — three $12.95 plates and bowls, Monday to Wednesday
- Vietnamese Vermicelli Bowls — the no-broth option for warm days
- How to Find Us at Promenade Mall — address, parking, and transit
- News & events — specials, seasonal menus, and what’s next at Thien Vietnam