Like my other post about different usage of curry sauce, this time is all about the Pad Thai sauce. Yes Pad Thai sauce is mainly used for well making Pad Thai. But I thought heck if you have a giant bottle of this stuff maybe you can use it some other way. Pad Thai sauce is super easy to make, all you need is 3 maybe 4 ingredients. It’s 1 part tamarind juice, 1 part palm sugar and 1 part fish sauce. Pour all the ingredients into a pot and just cook it till the sugar dissolves. Thats it! Yes I did say maybe 4 ingredients and the 4th is chili paste or sriracha to give it a little heat but of course you don’t want to add 1 part sriracha maybe just enough to your liking. Also I added a stick of cinnamon and few star anise just for the heck of it. I have found that a 1/4 cup of each ingredient will yield enough for 4-5 servings of Pad Thai. All you really need is 2-3 tablespoons for each person.

So here are few dishes that I came up with that used Pad Thai sauce.
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Got an email from the guys at Big Gay Ice Cream asking if I wanted to help them at the Luckyrice David Chang Night Market. I replied “OF COURSE ANYTHING FOR YOU GUYS!” I don’t think I really typed in all CAPS but I definitely had all CAPS in my mind when I replied to them. I had heard about this Night Market thing but when I went to the website it was already sold out. But hey-yo! Thanks to Doug and Bryan I got to go even though my main job was to help them pass out samples and snap photos for them.

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This past Sunday night, I was craving for chicken green curry from Joya, a Thai restaurant near my apartment. I usually get Pad Thai or Pad-See-Ew but my apartment mate, Mo, got me hooked on the curry. So that night we ordered 2 chicken green curries and 2 Thai iced tea. Mo loves spicy so he asked for his to be extra spicy.

CHECK OUT HOW FREAKIN SPICY LOOKING THAT IS!! It was so spicy Mo had to go buy himself another chicken green curry to dilute the spicier one. Hahahaaa.

- Joya 215 Court Street Brooklyn

There’s a tree-lined stretch of LaGuardia Place which features shops and restaurants that are set back from the street. That’s where I found Rhong Tiam, where I had lunch about a month ago. I had read about their food being spicy and authentic, though having never been to Thailand I’m not sure I’d know authentic Thai food if it ate me. My “lunchbox” special ($7) featured drunken noodles with tofu, a small salad, some spring rolls, and a mound of fragrant jasmine rice (surprising, as most places don’t serve rice with noodles). The drunken noodles were very tasty and nicely spicy, thanks to a sprinkle of chile powder over the top of them, and came with a much welcomed wedge of lime, something I wish more Thai restaurants would include. It wasn’t the best Thai food I’ve ever had, but it was pretty darned good.

Rhong Tiam — 541 LaGuardia Place

Oh…….The Boat. This restaurant definitely holds shit load of history for me. Been going here since senior year of high school and all through out my college years. This is probably THE place where I base all my Thai restaurants from. So what’s so special about this place?
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I love chicken Pad Thai and with the abundance of Thai restaurants in my neighborhood its not hard to find Pad Thai. What actually made me decide to make my own Pad Thai was Bobby Flay. One random Sunday night I was watching Throwdown with Bobby Flay where the challenge was Pad Thai. I’m not a fan of Bobby Flay at all but decided to watch since I wanted to see how Pad Thai is made. The throwdown was with Nongkran Daks, chef and owner of Thai Basil in Virginia near D.C. I’m sure you can youtube that episode but after watching what goes into a Pad Thai and how easy it was….I wanted to make my own.
So after googling, I decided to use these 2 recipes, chez pim and recipes from our Thai kitchen. At first I thought there’s no way this little amount of sauce will be able to flavor all that Pad Thai but I was wrong. The Pad Thai I made was quite good and flavorful. Totally impressed myself. It didn’t taste quite like the Pad Thai I get from restaurants but it was good enough for me at home.