You may love a good pad Thai, but do you know the dish’s history? Arundhati Hazra dives into the origins of the beloved meal and five top spots to try it.
Ask anyone to name the first Thai dish that comes to their mind, and pad Thai is likelyto be the most cited; after all, it is a dish named after the country itself. “It is a dish that brings together familiar and balanced flavours,” says head chef Rosarin Sripathum of Pavilion restaurant at Dusit Thani Bangkok. “It’s not too spicy, with a mild sweetness and a touch of tanginess, which makes it approachable for many palates.” It looks simple, but isn’t an easy dish to get right; Gordon Ramsay, known for dishing out tongue lashings for what he deems subpar dishes, was himself the recipient of stinging criticism from a Thai chef for his take on pad Thai.
Pad Thai is a dish with a unique backstory – it did not descend from the royal kitchens, nor did it come about from the hearths of the common people. It was created as a part of a nation-building effort. During World War II, Thailand suffered shortages of basic necessities including rice, which were exacerbated by floods ravaging the country. Prime Minister Plaek Phibunsongkhram encouraged Thais to move away from rice, a key component of the Thai diet, and eat noodles instead, promoting a dish that was initially made in his household based on Chinese stir-fried noodles common at the time. The government drove efforts to popularize the dish by codifying the recipe for pad Thai, and supported vendors to sell it out of mobile noodle carts. It was named pad Thai as part of a larger effort to build a Thai cultural identity, following the country’s name change from Siam to Thailand in 1939.
Thai male Chef preparing a noodle with tomato zucini and carrot in woking of traditional way a cooking pad thai on frying pan. Pad Thai can be a tricky meal to get perfect. Photo / 123rf
A good pad Thai maintains a delicate balance of flavours as well as textures – sweet, sour, savoury, crunchy, chewy. It is traditionally made with flat rice noodles, however, versions using glass noodles are also popular.
Good technique is critical to a good pad Thai. “Good ingredients are important, of course,” says Sripathum, “but they are available to anyone. What really makes a difference is how the dish is cooked. Stir-frying the noodles requires the right level of heat in the wok, and knowing when to add each ingredient. Timing affects everything – from the texture of the noodles to the balance of flavour.”
While pad Thai joints are present in every alley of Bangkok, here are five restaurants in Bangkok where you can try out different versions of pad Thai.
Thipsamai Padthai
313-315 Mahachai Road, Samran Rat, Phra Nakhon
The suburb of Pratu Phi (translating to Ghost Gate) is a foodie hotspot, with Thailand’s only Michelin-starred street food stall Jay Fai located there. Next to her restaurant is another stalwart of the city’s food scene, Thipsamai, which has been in the location since 1966 (though they claim ancestry back to 1939, around the invention of pad Thai). They claim to be the originator of the egg-wrapped version using shrimp oil and the chewier sen chan noodles. Thipsamai’s pad Thai looks like a burrito, with a thin skin of egg stretched around the noodles, which is stuffed with bean sprouts and tofu. It is on the sweeter side, and the restaurant also sells pad Thai kits to prepare it at home.
Original Pad Thai from Thipsamai. Photo / Arundhati Hazra
Pad Thai Fai Ta Lu
115/5 Dinso Road, Bowon Niwet, Phra Nakhon
Near Bangkok’s Democracy Monument, on the narrow Dinso Road, is Fai Ta Lu, the brainchild of chef Andy Yang. Yang ran a Michelin-starred restaurant in New York for years, but returned to Bangkok and opened Fai Ta Lu in 2019, and it has been a Michelin Bib Gourmand joint since its inception. The restaurant looks like a cross between a comics shop and a bar, with funky disco lighting and superhero figurines on display, but dishes out a pad Thai that is deeply imprinted with a smoky wok flavour. You can choose between pork, chicken and shrimp versions; the Iberian pork versions offer a great combination of smoke, crunch and meat.
Fai Ta Lu restaurant. Photo / Arundhati Hazra
Maethum Pad Thai
6/3 Siri Phong Road, Samran Rat, Phra Nakhon
The unassuming, slightly kitschy exterior of Maethum, located near the Old City Wall Park, belies the great food that its kitchen dishes out. This family run restaurant’s specialty is a pad Thai with crispy noodles, that arrives in a small heap on a plate along with peanuts, bean sprouts, shrimp and the obligatory lemon. Tossing them together produces a dish that is heavy on the crunch, and a sweet-sour explosion of flavours. If you have space in your belly, try out their mussel pancake as well – it is a crispy mussel bonanza.
Maethum restaurant. Photo / Arundhati Hazra
Baan Pad Thai
21-23 Soi Charoen Krung 44, North Sathorn
Tucked away in a narrow alley behind the Shangri-La hotel sits the unassuming Baan Pad Thai, housed in a small blue shophouse. The restaurant has a cosy homely feel, its walls adorned with carved wooden partitions reminiscent of traditional Thai homes. They are known for their crab pad Thai, which is cooked with blue crab meat and even comes with the shell on top; there is also a jumbo version with a giant mud crab at nearly ten times the price of the former. For a complete three course meal, start with the miang khana, a kale-leaf version of the traditional Thai snack miang kham, and end with mango sticky rice.
Lost in Thaislation
10451 Sukhumvit Road, Khlong Tan Nuea, Watthana
In Bangkok’s hip Thong Lor neighborhood is the intimate Lost in Thaislation, one of the few female-run bars of Bangkok. Bar director Suchada Sopajaree, also known as Fahbeer, serves up an inventive cocktail menu inspired by Thailand’s street food. The pad Thai cocktail has a base of brandy, mixed with amazake and a homemade pad Thai sauce, to replicate the sweet-sour tastes of pad Thai. Also worth a try are khao niew mamuang, a creamy rum-based riff on mango sticky rice, and laab, an Isan (North-Eastern Thai) twist on a martini with the flavour of ground roasted rice and a tangy lime foam.
Lost in Thaislation restaurant. Photo / Arundhati Hazra
