How NYC’s Best Pad Thai is Made

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Hi, I am Joel Watthanawongwat.

I am the chef, owner at Soothr in New York City.

Today I will be making my perfect version

of Pad Thai.

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The main concept of Soothr,

we wanna focus on the Yaowarat style food.

It's a combination of Chinese influence

with Thai ingredients.

We wanted to just open up a small noodle shop

and then after that everything just blew up.

Pad Thai is one of the most popular noodles here.

This thing looks really intricate

but it's actually very easy to make.

To get started,

I'm just gonna start with the noodles.

Pad Thai is all about rice noodles.

When we soak it, the texture is still firm

and it tastes amazing.

I'm gonna give this guy a spa day.

At the restaurant, we actually soak this overnight

in a cold water like eight hours.

Just because this one is a dry version,

you wanna make sure that it's soft

so then when you put it in the wok,

it cooks like properly.

But if you're in a rush,

you could do it quick, just use warm water.

If you can take the time, please take the time.

If you do a shortcut, you might just have

to compromise that quality of the texture.

I actually have a batch

that I did soak last night.

So we have this noodles that is fully soaked

and the texture is amazing.

The noodles should just bend, not snap.

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What makes the perfect Pad Thai sauce

would just be these four simple ingredients here.

We have our shallot, fish sauce, tamarind paste

and table sugar.

All of these ingredients

play their own important role.

You can't really miss any of this.

Alright, I'm just gonna bring this over

to the pot and let's get it cooking.

So you wanna caramelize the shallot first,

cook it through until it turns a little brown.

This usually takes about three to five minutes.

It brings out the sweetness from the shallot

and the aroma in it.

Make sure that you like stir it

so it doesn't get burned.

And maybe low heat could be nice too.

The flavor of the tamarind is like the sourness

and the tang in the sauce.

So this tamarind paste is pre-made

but in Thailand they actually use

like a real tamarind and squeeze

that juice out of it.

It's quite a laborious work.

If you making it home, you should go buy a jar.

It's much easier.

I'm going to add in the fish sauce.

So the good Pad Thai,

you need to have fish sauce.

It has to be fish sauce.

You cannot use soy sauce.

No.

The fish sauce gives it like the salty flavor.

We are looking for that reduced like texture,

not too runny.

The sugar that we're adding to the sauce,

gives it the sweetness.

Palm sugar in Thailand, it's quite common.

I prefer this table sugar in the Pad Thai sauce

than the palm sugar

because when I cook the sauce it's easier to melt

and then dissolve it into the sauce.

All of our flavor elements are in here,

the sweet, the salty and the tang.

I'm just gonna let it simmer for a few minutes

until it gives you that thicker, reduced texture.

This is the consistency you're looking for.

So it's still like liquidy,

but it's not super runny like water

because the sugar gives it that syrup texture.

Right, we're gonna let this cool down

for a little bit and it's gonna get thicker.

Now I'm gonna focus on my egg net.

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The egg net is actually pretty much an omelet

in that net shape.

It's just gonna be like a design

of like lace pattern.

At the end, I'm gonna wrap my Pad Thai

with the egg net.

This is one way of how we elevate the common

street food Pad Thai

into like a nicer presentation.

So I'm gonna whisk this egg up

and what's important about this

is you actually have to sift this just to ensure

that the egg texture is absolutely smooth.

And the trick to make the egg net

is this squeeze bottle.

You have to use this.

I like working this with low heat

because the egg net is quite intricate.

It gets cooked really quickly.

Sometimes you just have to do it a couple

of times first before you find

that right temperature.

I like to do this across

and then I'm gonna do this way.

In Thailand they actually

use the whole omelet sheet,

but here we like to make

it a little bit more creative.

So we do it like a lace pattern.

This you have to be quite gentle

when you push it 'cause it might break.

You could actually sometimes hold it off the heat

'cause the heat still stay with the pan

and you still get that nice crust

like this one you just like push it just

so now like you know your whole sheet is moving,

it's easier to grab it.

And voila!

So we are gonna move on to making the Pad Thai.

Let's get woking.

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So now we have to wok

to get started on our Pad Thai.

Pad Thai means, pat means fry,

stir fry in Thai, Thai is Thai.

All together Pad Thai

means stir fry the Thai way.

I got all my ingredients ready.

We have our protein, we have shrimps.

I have my shrimp ready,

peeled, deveined, and butterfly.

The reason that we want a butterfly this open

because you know we want it

to be cooked nicely on the inside

and they look better when they open up.

So the chive would add the flavor to it,

almost like a garlic aroma in in your dish.

And we also have the Thai sweet pickled radish.

This one also gives you flavor and texture.

It's sweet and it has a little crunch

when you bite into it.

It's really nice.

And next we have our bean sprouts here,

the classic ingredient.

When you bite into it a little crunch

with like water.

I have my Pad Thai sauce here.

It's all cooled down.

And this is the texture

that you're actually looking for.

It's still runny

but it still has that thicker texture.

I like to put the egg in the Pad Thai

just because we want something to coat the wok.

And of course, the main guy here, noodles.

This is the noodle that I soaked from last night.

They're all soft but still the texture

is still firm and it doesn't snap.

This is the perfect texture.

This wok is a Chinese style wok.

So in Thailand when people fry stuff,

in small towns, they still use the charcoal stove

to make the Pad Thai.

So you get that charred flavor.

So when we're here the charred flavor

that we can get it out,

it's from this wok here with the high heat,

that's how you get the charred flavor.

You can use just a regular pan.

I think it's fine too.

It's just gonna maybe like take a little

bit longer than the wok.

As long as you could get the high heat,

that should work just perfectly.

It's smoking now.

So I'm gonna put in some oil.

Cracking the egg.

I think it looks good.

Shrimp.

Okay, usually we'll put like seven in.

You can lower your heat as well.

So you see how quickly this go.

I usually do about like 200 grams of noodles.

You're looking for that charred

and soft like texture of the noodles.

It's kind of hard to tell by the eyes,

but you can feel it with your hands

when you touch that.

If you don't cook it properly

before you put in the sauce,

the sugar will lock your noodles

and your noodles will stop the cooking process.

I like doing a lot of tossing just

because I don't want it to be burned

or anything gets like overly cooked.

The trick is if you have high heat,

you have to control your hand.

You have to be really quick.

But then again,

you can lower your heat a little bit

if you can't like go fast with your hand.

It works fine as well.

So when I put the sauce in,

I actually put it on the noodles

'cause if you put it on the rim,

the sugar can get burned and then make sure

that you go through it like evenly

and smooth it out.

So I'm looking for the color.

Maybe I'm just gonna add

in a little bit more sauce.

That's good.

And put in some chive, bean sprouts

and a bit of the radish.

I just cut the heat after I put in the vegetables

'cause those will get cooked very quickly.

So let's get it on the plate.

When I plate the Pad Thai,

I want to like put all the shrimp on the top.

You wanna showcase your nice ingredients

and the colors.

I'm gonna save a couple of shrimps

to put it on the egg net.

So I have this egg net ready.

So it's very simple.

I'm just gonna wrap it around the Pad Thai.

And also we're gonna put the shrimps on top,

just so you see more shrimp.

Baby bananas, put it here.

And also the petals, we are gonna put it here.

This is my favorite part.

I love putting lime in the Pad Thai.

It's very typical in Thailand that like people

like to add a little bit more sugar

to the Pad Thai and also their chili flake.

And lastly is the crushed peanuts.

Everyone loves peanuts.

The peanuts add the crunchy texture to it

and also the flavor.

You know when you bite into the soft noodles,

you have the crunchiness from the peanuts

and the spiciness from the chili flake.

This is my perfect Pad Thai.

So I like squeeze the lime on it.

I'm just gonna mix everything all in

with this chili flake and the peanuts.

This is what you're looking for.

The long noodles.

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So good.

The noodle, it's soft, but it's bouncy.

It's a great texture.

The sauce is well absorbed.

The taste is amazing.

All the flavors, sweet, tangy,

peanuts, spicy, everything.

It is like flavor bomb.

This is everything Pad Thai is supposed to be.

Pad Thai is such a great dish to make it at home.

As long as you get all your ingredients ready,

it's just simple.

It's worth the time,

if you get the right ingredients,

you get the right Pad Thai.

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Should I save you some?