Whenever I visit Thai restaurants, a typical staple would be for me to order pineapple rice, green chicken curry, and pad thai. It had been over a decade since I last visited Bangkok and I was genuinely curious to know where the best place to eat pad thai was!
A number of blogs and online sites kept pointing to Thipsamai, and Sarah and I were curious to find out what the fuss was all about. We were there by 7:11pm, surprised to see only a handful of people queueing up by the entrance.
From the outside, I found it interesting to see all the staff making the pad thai. I honesty had no idea how it was cooked, or the process that was entailed. One thing that caught my eye was the red oil they used to mix with the noodles... which was apparently shrimp oil!
Inside, the walls were adorned with several citations from various international magazines (TIME, Reuters, National Geographic, etc.)... all with wonderful acclaim of how great the pad thai here was! We also saw a number of photos, presumably of the owner and famous people they graced their establishment. Of course, there were people all over... plenty of which were foreigners, but still quite a handful of locals!
Each table came in with several condiments... like chilis, oils, sugar... as well as a plate of fresh bean sprouts. We were totally hungry, so we snacked on some of the bean sprouts. It was so crunchy... amazingly fresh, and had this juicy, nutty taste that came when you munch on it! We decided to order two sets each of their original pad thai... and in no time, our order arrived!
It really looked like a fat omelette, but we knew that there were noodles inside. This was the first time I had ever seen pad thai served like this... I was accustomed to seeing mixed noodles strewn all over the serving plate.
On the menu, the price range varied based on the size of the shrimp you wanted. We just wanted the regular one, so that we could have some form of standard / baseline of what the dish tastes like. And...
...it was just amazing! Pad thai generally tastes good... like pizza, in general. Like you can't go wrong with it. But imagine that you encountered the best version of that dish. Like, if you thought you enjoyed pad thai a lot... when you eat something like this, you start to reevaluate what good pad thai should taste like. This, for me, was one of those few moments. For the first few bites I took, I didn't bother placing any condiments on my plate. It didn't need it at all (of course, later on I decided to put some, just to make sure I wasn't missing out on anything).
The best part? It costs around 60 baht... that's like Php 98, for possibly the best pad thai you've had in your life (I say possibly, as I'm sure there are other really, really good pad thai places in Thailand). Of course, I'm comparing this to the benchmark I've set from my own experiences in Manila... and rarely can you get pad thai this good, at this price!
I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to try more... so I tried their vegetarian pad thai! Was it delicious, yes! Did I love it, yes! Was it as epic as the original pad thai... I'd still say the original one was more epic. But wow... this tasted really really good! I'd still order it again!
By the time we left around 7:50PM, a huge line formed outside... which made us realize how lucky we were. It seemed production of the dishes was also in full swing... and you could really see plates upon plates upon plates of pad thai being served up.
I'm certain Bangkok has a whole lot of food experiences to offer, but I personally wouldn't mind coming back here for more of their pad thai! I totally recommend this place!
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