Last Thursday I bounced a little early from work to run a few errands and since
it was conveniently on my route home, and the weather was in the 30s, windy,
and rainy, and I hadn’t eaten all day, Sap’s on Westgate drew me in like the
Sirens. I didn’t even look at the menu, as I had decided what to order on the
short drive over; a double dose of spiciness to heat me up from within, and to get
my stuffy, cedar pollen-afflicted sinuses reopened.
Pad Kee Mao (S-F5) is a popular stir-fried rice noodle dish served throughout Thailand and the direct translation is “drunkard’s noodles”. When you order this dish in Thailand, rest assured that it will be very spicy, loaded with chiles and basil, and the preferred way to eat it is accompanied by a large icy beer (although over there, the beer might be poured over ice). The dish is just as popular with the Thai whiskey drinkers, whether it’s Mekhong or Sang Som whiskey, Sang Thip rum, lao khao (“white liquor”), lao theuan (“jungle liquor”), or yaa dong (rice-based herbal liquor). I suppose you could also include the Thai fruit wine drinkers (many different kinds of tropical fruits are made into sweet wines), and perhaps the legitimate Thai varietal grape wine drinkers as well (Thailand has a rapidly growing wine industry, using varietal grapes grown on the temperate mountain slopes). The legit varietal Thai wine drinkers over there tend to be a little on the hi-so (fancypants) side, but hell, even the Tuppies love pad kee mao.
Pad Kee Mao is a versatile dish. It can be made with rice noodles, wheat spaghetti, without noodles and served over rice, or as fried rice. The main protein can be beef, pork, chicken, tofu, or seafood, or with mixed meats, or only vegetables; you name it. Kee mao is a cooking style, not a particular dish, although most Westerners think of the classic stir-fried rice noodle dish when they think of the term kee mao. In Thai, pad means to stir-fry, and kee mao means someone who likes to drink too much. Kee literally means “shit”, and putting kee in front of any verb indicates it’s a bad habit. Mao means drunk. So, a kee mao is someone who has a bad habit of drinking way too much, or a “shit-faced drunk”.
Pad kee mao, with pork
There are many theories on how the dish or the cooking style got its name. Drinkers in Thailand prefer very spicy dishes, especially carbo-rich dishes, when they’re getting their drunk on, or on their way home from getting their drunk on, and pad kee mao is considered an excellent hangover treatment. Believable theories, all. Others, especially Westerners, feel the dish is so hot that the eater has to be drunk to be able to stand it, or one becomes drunk trying to drown out the heat with alcohol, or it’s so hot that the spiciness makes one feel drunk. Considering the wide assortment of ingredients that can be in the dish, the cook must have been drunk to have combined them in the first place, or the original cook was drunk when he first cooked it, so he didn’t realize how hot the dish was until later. Yet another theory is that the “wobbly” nature of the noodles themselves gave the dish its name. Any of those theories could have led to the name of the dish.
Pad kee mao is widely available at street food stalls very late at night and very early in the morning, when the unofficial or hidden bars are emptying out, hence, the preferred dish of drunkards. In most Thai cities there are curfews on how late bars can serve, but it’s common for underground or late night bars to do business way past curfew by offering bribes to local officials to look the other way. There is a subculture of illegal after hours clubs, often located in second floor walkups, which serve all night long, with many of them not even opening up for business until 3 or 4 am.
Regardless of how the dish got its name, the cooking style and dish originated in an earlier version in China, and was brought through Southern China by traders and immigrants into both Laos and Thailand, spreading first through the Chinese immigrant communities, and then adopted into the Thai community at-large. It is a common dish across Thailand, and is most frequently found being sold by street or market vendors, or in shophouse cafés with limited menus. A shophouse is a typical Thai row building, 2 or 3-story, with a business on the ground floor and living quarters above. If that business is a small café, it will usually have open-air seating, covered by the building above, with a small street vendor-type kitchen set up in one corner, or on the edge of the sidewalk. It can also be found on the menu of regular restaurants, and if a bar has a kitchen, it will be offered to the bar’s patrons.
The dish itself involves the aforementioned choice of protein and blanched (pre-cooked al dente) rice stick noodles, especially wide (sen yai) noodles. Some prefer rice vermicelli, feeling it gets coated better with the sauce, and spaghetti noodles aren’t uncommon, especially in the cities where Italian restaurants are quite popular. Whichever noodle is used, it’s best if the noodles get slightly charred in the cooking process, to get that smoky “dragon’s kiss” from the wok. It can also be prepared as fried rice, or served over rice as a sauce. The dish has lots of chopped garlic cloves, especially Thai garlic, which is smaller but more pungent than American garlic. The heat comes from lots of chopped fresh Thai chiles, especially orange Thai chiles (phrik daeng), usually combined with some phrik pat (roasted chile paste), or phrik pon (dried ground bird chile). The dish will be very spicy, unless the vendor tones it down because you look like you can’t handle the heat. Depending on the cook, it might also have phrik thai onn (fresh green peppercorns). There is an assortment of vegetables that can be added at this point, depending on the choice of the cook: mushrooms, Chinese cabbage, etc. Traditionally the dish is not terribly vegetable-centric.
The sauce is usually a mother sauce made-up in advance, of fish sauce, black soy sauce, oyster sauce, and white sugar. It’s not uncommon to include Golden Mountain Sauce, which has been made in Thailand for over 50 years. It has a taste similar to Maggi Seasoning Sauce, but is more authentically “Thai” in overall flavor profile. At the last minute, holy basil is added so that it gets wilted and infuses the dish. Many prefer holy basil since it amplifies the spiciness of the dish (which, in the case of this dish, is a good thing). Thai basil can be used instead of holy basil; if so, it gets tossed in as a garnish.
Pad Kee Mao (S-F5) is a popular stir-fried rice noodle dish served throughout Thailand and the direct translation is “drunkard’s noodles”. When you order this dish in Thailand, rest assured that it will be very spicy, loaded with chiles and basil, and the preferred way to eat it is accompanied by a large icy beer (although over there, the beer might be poured over ice). The dish is just as popular with the Thai whiskey drinkers, whether it’s Mekhong or Sang Som whiskey, Sang Thip rum, lao khao (“white liquor”), lao theuan (“jungle liquor”), or yaa dong (rice-based herbal liquor). I suppose you could also include the Thai fruit wine drinkers (many different kinds of tropical fruits are made into sweet wines), and perhaps the legitimate Thai varietal grape wine drinkers as well (Thailand has a rapidly growing wine industry, using varietal grapes grown on the temperate mountain slopes). The legit varietal Thai wine drinkers over there tend to be a little on the hi-so (fancypants) side, but hell, even the Tuppies love pad kee mao.
Pad Kee Mao is a versatile dish. It can be made with rice noodles, wheat spaghetti, without noodles and served over rice, or as fried rice. The main protein can be beef, pork, chicken, tofu, or seafood, or with mixed meats, or only vegetables; you name it. Kee mao is a cooking style, not a particular dish, although most Westerners think of the classic stir-fried rice noodle dish when they think of the term kee mao. In Thai, pad means to stir-fry, and kee mao means someone who likes to drink too much. Kee literally means “shit”, and putting kee in front of any verb indicates it’s a bad habit. Mao means drunk. So, a kee mao is someone who has a bad habit of drinking way too much, or a “shit-faced drunk”.
Pad kee mao, with pork
There are many theories on how the dish or the cooking style got its name. Drinkers in Thailand prefer very spicy dishes, especially carbo-rich dishes, when they’re getting their drunk on, or on their way home from getting their drunk on, and pad kee mao is considered an excellent hangover treatment. Believable theories, all. Others, especially Westerners, feel the dish is so hot that the eater has to be drunk to be able to stand it, or one becomes drunk trying to drown out the heat with alcohol, or it’s so hot that the spiciness makes one feel drunk. Considering the wide assortment of ingredients that can be in the dish, the cook must have been drunk to have combined them in the first place, or the original cook was drunk when he first cooked it, so he didn’t realize how hot the dish was until later. Yet another theory is that the “wobbly” nature of the noodles themselves gave the dish its name. Any of those theories could have led to the name of the dish.
Pad kee mao is widely available at street food stalls very late at night and very early in the morning, when the unofficial or hidden bars are emptying out, hence, the preferred dish of drunkards. In most Thai cities there are curfews on how late bars can serve, but it’s common for underground or late night bars to do business way past curfew by offering bribes to local officials to look the other way. There is a subculture of illegal after hours clubs, often located in second floor walkups, which serve all night long, with many of them not even opening up for business until 3 or 4 am.
Regardless of how the dish got its name, the cooking style and dish originated in an earlier version in China, and was brought through Southern China by traders and immigrants into both Laos and Thailand, spreading first through the Chinese immigrant communities, and then adopted into the Thai community at-large. It is a common dish across Thailand, and is most frequently found being sold by street or market vendors, or in shophouse cafés with limited menus. A shophouse is a typical Thai row building, 2 or 3-story, with a business on the ground floor and living quarters above. If that business is a small café, it will usually have open-air seating, covered by the building above, with a small street vendor-type kitchen set up in one corner, or on the edge of the sidewalk. It can also be found on the menu of regular restaurants, and if a bar has a kitchen, it will be offered to the bar’s patrons.
The dish itself involves the aforementioned choice of protein and blanched (pre-cooked al dente) rice stick noodles, especially wide (sen yai) noodles. Some prefer rice vermicelli, feeling it gets coated better with the sauce, and spaghetti noodles aren’t uncommon, especially in the cities where Italian restaurants are quite popular. Whichever noodle is used, it’s best if the noodles get slightly charred in the cooking process, to get that smoky “dragon’s kiss” from the wok. It can also be prepared as fried rice, or served over rice as a sauce. The dish has lots of chopped garlic cloves, especially Thai garlic, which is smaller but more pungent than American garlic. The heat comes from lots of chopped fresh Thai chiles, especially orange Thai chiles (phrik daeng), usually combined with some phrik pat (roasted chile paste), or phrik pon (dried ground bird chile). The dish will be very spicy, unless the vendor tones it down because you look like you can’t handle the heat. Depending on the cook, it might also have phrik thai onn (fresh green peppercorns). There is an assortment of vegetables that can be added at this point, depending on the choice of the cook: mushrooms, Chinese cabbage, etc. Traditionally the dish is not terribly vegetable-centric.
The sauce is usually a mother sauce made-up in advance, of fish sauce, black soy sauce, oyster sauce, and white sugar. It’s not uncommon to include Golden Mountain Sauce, which has been made in Thailand for over 50 years. It has a taste similar to Maggi Seasoning Sauce, but is more authentically “Thai” in overall flavor profile. At the last minute, holy basil is added so that it gets wilted and infuses the dish. Many prefer holy basil since it amplifies the spiciness of the dish (which, in the case of this dish, is a good thing). Thai basil can be used instead of holy basil; if so, it gets tossed in as a garnish.
Sugar, phrik pat, and naam som phrik
On the table sits the vendor or shophouse café’s khreuang puang, literally “circle of
spices”. It's a reference to the standard condiments on the Thai table,
especially where noodles are served: naam plaa (fish sauce), phrik
pon (chile powder), phrik dong or naam som
phrik (chile slices in vinegar), and white sugar. Vinegar isn’t
normally added to a wok during the cooking process, as it could affect the
cooked on non-stick “seasoning” of the metal. Vinegar is usually added by the
diner at the table. If the vendor specializes in pad kee mao, the chiles in
vinegar would likely be Thai orange chiles, a sweet-sour, fruity chile that
still packs a wallop, but not the stinging heat of Thai or bird chiles (prik kee nu). For the most part, the
chiles added to the vinegar as a table condiment are milder Thai chiles like phrik
chii faa (‘sky pointing’ chiles) or phrik yuak (‘banana
stalk’ chiles). At Sap’s they are serrano chiles, which have a similar
heat profile. You’d also find some chile paste, or phrik phat: fresh ripe Thai chiles which are sun or oven-dried,
roasted and ground, and then sautéed in a little bit of oil to produce a dry,
almost paste-like consistency. It's used as a table condiment. The flavor is
very spicy and smoky, and the taste of this condiment goes with literally any
dish. The most common adjustments that a pad kee mao diner would add are a
sprinkle of sugar, a little vinegar, and some additional heat, either from
chile paste or chile powder (or both, which is what I prefer).
Thai orange chiles, from rareseeds.com
I made a great choice with the noodle section of the meal, telling my server that the kitchen could make it 3, 4, or even 5 chile hot, and I got it with sen yai wide rice boodles instead of spaghetti. A wonderful dish, especially when you’re not drunk.
The other dish that I knew I had to have was a steaming, aromatic bowl of tom klong gai (S-NS15), which is first cousin to the much more famous tom yum gai, or Thai hot and sour chicken soup. Tom klong is not that common in the States, especially a version this good. Tom klong is one of my favorite Thai soups, but it can be too hot for several of my dining companions, so I usually end up getting it when I’m dining alone, or when I’m eating with a fellow chile-head.
Tom klong gai
With tom klong, the lime sourness is boosted by tamarind, which gives the soup a slightly fruity edge. All of the aromatics, such as galangal, lemongrass, shallots, and Thai lime leaf are fire-roasted, giving the broth a pleasing slightly smoky and bitter element in the flavor profile, to go with the charred, dried Thai chiles, and the numerous and delightful very thin slices of garlic. The overall taste is spicy, sour, sweet, salty, bitter, and rich (from a very worthy, long-simmered chicken stock). Normally it comes with your choice of noodles, but I omit those and opt for rice on the side, which keeps the intense flavors undiluted. At Sap’s it gets chicken or mixed seafood added at the last minute, but over in Thailand it can come with chicken, seafood, shrimp, or with dried or smoked fish. This is the ultimate soup if you’re feeling like you could use some liquid penicillin. It’s chicken-rich, very spicy, and overflowing with vitamins and robust flavor. I highly recommend this soup. Get out of your tom yum gai rut!
Mick Vann ©
Thank you, your article is very good
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