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New Bo Ky itself, if you can find it in the Chinatown maze of neon and knick-knacks, isn’t much to look at: Wooden chairs with mustard-yellow cushions, dirty white walls, Formica tables, and red Chinese lanterns and scrolls hung here and there. When the waitress slaps down a Styrofoam cup of water, you may wonder what you’ve gotten yourself into. But once you open the menu and see 30 varieties of soup for the choosing, it’s clear what to order. At every table, diners are hunched over large bowls of soup, whether they are expertly spinning together thin webs of yellow egg noodles between chopsticks, or frenetically spooning away. Extreme eaters may gravitate toward soups featuring beef belly, pig intestines, or pork kidneys, but there’s no shame in ordering Won-Ton Soup, either. The Won-Tons are stuffed with savory ground pork and shrimp, and arrive floating in a salty chicken broth, with a hearty helping of egg noodles piled high like a bird’s nest. — Kara Newman

Curry chicken soup, $5; Viet Nam spring roll, $6.50; dumpling egg noodle soup, $4