One of the clients took us to this insanely packed Pad Thai place... somewhere in BKK... i couldn't even tell you. Apparently it's very famous and i can see why. I've been wondering for years what real Pad Thai tastes like because the stuff I've had in NY and Canada have been sweet sloppy messes that cannot possibly be close to the real thing. and they're not, i'm happy to report!
So this is the place if you ever wanna go...
Sorry can't help with the name or location, but ask someone Thai! It's pretty famous.
Check out the ingredients, they use, no pre-made sweet sauce here... The stuff in the metal pots is freshly prepared shrimp oil! amazing flavor.
They are cooking non-stop for hours... legit endurance.
The trademark drink at this place is a Coconut Frosty which is some kind of shaved ice, coconut water/meat concoction. I will say that although i usually love coconut stuffs, this one had a wonky aftertaste i didn't enjoy so much. But, given how hot the place is, it really should be the perfect drink...
And here is the main event! The one of the left is pre-mixing.
So we had the slightly more complicated/premium version so ours came with from 10:00 going clockwise, green mango, REAL crabmeat, shrimps and some of nutty, crunchy leaf bits... In my opinion it was a little too much, and I kinda wanted to try the basic version... but the client wanted to spoil us so what could i say??
Anyway, needless to say it was delicious, and the extra ingredients actually worked together quite well. Of course the real point of contention are the noodles and the basic sauce themselves... and it's completely different from what i've had before. The sauce is only slightly sweet and quite savory, while still somehow remaining kind of subtle. A big surprise given the shrimp oil? But it's stupid to try and over-analyze something like Pad Thai. You know when it's right, and that's all you need to know. This stuff was right.
Bkk gets crazy points from me. You just need a guide!
