Pad Thai Pratupee @ Thip Samai

The famous and the holy grail of Pad Thai, the national dish of Thailand. Hmm I've alwiz thought it's Tom Yum. Peakie D and Globe Trotter Wei insisted that this is worth the visit, and not to mention its queue.

and so on hot a evening our hotel doorboy tried so hard to hail a cab for us. During peak hours, no sane cabbie would wanna come here....just to earn your RM 15. The bad traffic only means your journey would take about 45 minutes for a place 5km away. So JS decided he's gonna hail the dangerous Tuk-Tuk instead.

JS: "TUK!!!!"
and the ferocious driver just zoomed in and stopped right smack in front of us.

hotel doorboy stared at us in horror.
"sir!!! this one is dangerous and they don't have meter!!!"
yes my dear cutie pie Thai boy, we are not Tuk-Tuk virgins either. In 10 minutes we have arrived at a sleepy area along the road of Maha Chai.

The queue basically has about 48 people...yes I've actually counted....but surprisingly it was not a long wait bcoz ppl just come, eat and go. The menu only consisted of Pad Thai coz no brain cells to kill while ordering it.


Even if u arrive in a Rolls Royce Wraith, u still gotta join the queue and wait. No exception. But this Thai guy was really a head-turner bcoz of his million dollar car. By the way, Malaysia just received the first shipment of wraith in June.

While we waited, there was a lot going on here to watch. Maybe that was the reason that we didn't exactly felt that time passed by. The fire flickered and the cooks move the wok as fast as he could. 

U won't believe it, everything was cooked with charcoal fire here. In fact this entire Maha Chai street, there's 3 restaurant/stalls that are worth visiting. All cooked with charcoal fire. 

First you pour in some animal fats onto the wok, swirl it once....scoop some mixture of eggs, and u swirl another time.

The plate of cooked Pad Thai was then dunked in.....


move once more time to wrap the pad thai....

and off to the plate!!!

Seriously I can't even time it, We had to snap so many times to get the entire sequence right. Bcoz the cook was just too fast!!! He just went wham wham wham and done. Definitely under a minute. Well with that kinda crowd, u better cook fast boy!!!

Yea especially when there's so many plates of Pad Thai are waiting for you.

Basically pad thai is a street food of stir fried flat rice noodles with eggs, toufu, beansprouts and chives. These days, there's meat and prawns innit. Flavoured with tamarind pulp, fish sauce, spices, chili and sugar. Usually served with a lime wedge and a generous dash of chopped roasted peanuts.

As we queued and made our round, we saw this huge like bath tub of fresh orange juice!!! WAHHH it looked so good man. These were made from local oranges - the one with green colored skin. No preservatives and had to be consumed within 48 hours?

Then we were finally seated and we got to choose between dining inside the shoplot or al-fresco. We wanted outdoor for more ambience....hahahahaha and to snap more pic of curious customers queue-ing up along this street. 

To quench our thirst from the evening heat....the yummy fresh orange juice with tonnes of pulps. One can get full just by drinking a bottle. There's so much of fat juicy pulp in here. It's about RM 15 for a big bottle to be shared for 2.

before we could order, the typical mise-en-place arrived at our table. A plate of raw banana tree flowers, fragrant lime wedges, clean and juicy beans sprouts, and chives.

and the star dish arrived....

it has a very good balance of savouriness, sweetness and spices.
its noodle still has got its al-dente-ness and aroma from the charcoal fire.


the other version that we've ordered consisted of a lot of big prawns, freshly peeled crab meats, finely sliced green mango. I prefer this version bcoz it has got such tanginess from the mango.

Suddenly....our table has to be moved.....
careful of my orange juice there boys!!!!

bcoz the next door shop tenant needed to get out from her building.

yeah so hilarious that Monkey had to pose. Bout 8 tables were moved to somewhere in that short 1 minute. Yes it only took one minute to move and to place everything back in order.

Nobody was grunting, no one was complaining....it was a quick affair.

the boys replaced back the table in proper order with the correct side. Look ma!! my plate of crab meat pad thai was still on my side!!! 

so u mix the crab meat with the tangy mango along the pad thai....and enjoy.
NOM NOM NOM...so so yummy and worth waiting for :)))

Next door to Thip Samai, there's a few other vendors selling other kinda Thai Food. So if u would like to indulge while waiting, u could :)))) 

After our yummy Pad Thai, we walked down to the last stall/eatery that you must try along this road. Local Thai noodle....that smells so darn good. No tourists ate at this stall, they dun even have an English menu and nothing in A B C on its signage.

JS: "Monkey, u sure u can eat sumore?"
Monkey: "YES!!!!"
The menu consisted of only 3 items, from wat u could see on its banner...so I guess for tourists like us just point wat u want? But JS spoke such fluent Thai, he just ordered like a local.

the lil gal at the back was playing with her father while he was feeding her. I wondered wat kind of food could a young child consume here bcoz it's super spicy can die.

the simple RM 4.50 thai noodle in pork broth with some char siew, pork balls, fish paste slices and loads of vegetables. Lookin at this pic just made me salivate bcoz the memories of its taste just came gushing into my head.

nope this isn't bee hoon but really fine and thin flat rice noodle

the standard mise-en-place for noodle shops in Thailand. With pickled chili, chili flakes, sugar and the 4th one is usually the signature chili paste from that particular store. In this case it was smashed bird eye chilis in some vinegar. There was also a bottle of Thai fish sauce if u wanna add more saltiness to your food.

OMGawdddddddddd it was the hottest thing I've ever eaten in my life!!!!!! but it was so tasty and good. The broth/soup has got so much for tiny local Thai garlic innit. Still wrapped in its thin skin. The taste profile was so complex that we were thinking hard, wat else was in there.

that bowl of spicy Thai pork noodle got me thinking hard the entire nite. I should have tapao a pack to be eaten in my room for supper hehehehe.

So this Maha Chai road is really worth visiting for:
1) the yummy crab omelette at Raan Jay Fai *read bout it here*
2) the holy grail of Pad Thai at Thip Samai
3) and this hot spicy noodle stall

Thip Samai Pad Thai
313 Maha Chai Road,
Samran Rat, Phra Nakhon,
Bangkok 10200,
Thailand.
Opening hours: 5pm to 3am daily