Most Americans only know pad thai, but pad gaprao is where it's at, especially pad gaprao kai dao (with a fried egg that has a runny yolk).
It's not that easy to replicate because of its main ingredient: holy basil. This is not normal basil or Thai basil. Holy basil is a specific kind of basil that tastes peppery and is not commonly available in the U.S. (but grows like weeds in Thailand).
It is an iconic dish in Thailand. When food vlogger Mark Wiens opened his first restaurant PhedMark, he choose to specialize in pad gaprao and nothing else because it was the national staple.
I would also suggest OTR's video on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OupK3x8ujw which also covers the importance of Holy Basil, talks about other variants of Pad Krapao that are little known outside of Thailand, and also a little bit of the history behind the dish.
Bit of an irrelevant aside, but it's amazing(ly sad) how off the wall Thai romanization remains. In Thai the dish is of course unambiguously ผัดกะเพรา, where the "correct" RTGS romanization would be "phat kaphrao". Yet the Guardian randomly uses only the second half of this, subbing in "pad" for the first word even though ผ and พ are pronounced identically. Whereas you're at least consistent in using for lack of a better word "backpacker Thai", where ก/พ are g/p instead of k/ph and ด is written d even when it's pronounced t (as in ผัด).
Anyway! If you need a decent {ph,p}a{t,d} {k,g}ap{h}rao and are not in Thailand, I can warmly recommend Greyhound Cafe, which has branches in Singapore, Hong Kong, Manila and London: https://www.greyhoundcafe.co.th/
I don’t mean the spelling, I mean that the “r” in that case is not spoken, presumably because saying it as “l” would be inconvenient.
But really, are any of them “grapao” with the r on the first syllable? I always thought that was just a mistake we foreigners make because we don’t learn it as กะเพรา.
They have a large menu with lots of Western choices too (because that's hip for Thai people in Thailand), but I've never been disappointed with the pure Thai side of the menu. YMMV, and I haven't been to the London branch.
I'll die on this hill but ก as g is clearly a more accurate than k. Like, you wouldn't pronounce ไก่ as "kai" (ไข่/ไหค่/etc) it's so much more clear to say "gai(lowtone)".
Point being that even the official romanization sucks.
You think that /k/ sounds like /g/, because you speak a language (English) that doesn't distinguish them. However, I imagine that writing "k" for /k/ makes perfect sense to speakers of languages that have /g/, /k/, and /kh/.
And your solution works for /k/ and /kh/, but runs into problems when you have a three-way contrast (/b/p/ph/ and /d/t/th). You can't write "buu" for "crab" just because you think it sounds like an English "b"; you need "b" for the actual /b/ sound.
I just think that ไก่ is miles closer to Gai than Kai, that's all. Another hill would be that ปู is best written as bpuu/bpoo.
I don't really think it matters, no one is consistent, no transliteration covers all cases. Unless maybe ipa? (which no one uses to communicate anyway).
I can agree that the Paiboon romanization (g/k, b/bp/b, d/dt/t) is probably the most intuitive for English-speakers.
But it's silly to say that it's the best system just because it is easiest for people like yourself.
I do think something IPA-inspired (k/kh, b/p/ph, d/t/th) is consistent and still usable. It will also encourage better pronunciation (at least for somewhat serious students) if they are trying to say the correct sound (unaspirated /k/) instead of approximating it with an English phoneme that isn't used in Thai (voiced /g/).
I didn't say it is the best system though, I said that I think some characters are more accurate than others. The implied context being, casually writing Thai in English, to other English speakers.
But I do think that an intuitive system is better than an IPA inspired system, and that's purely because of the fact that only 1% of people will be using it and understanding it. The other 99% will be using other, random, variations. However an intuitive system will at least catch most people who speaks English.
Any romanization that is more than "close enough" is a waste of time though, when compared to simply learning to write in Thai.
A romanization that’s good for writing an entire language accurately is usually not going to come up with spellings that lead an English speaker to a good initial approximation for exactly this reason.
I would argue that since food names are usually pronounced by non-speakers who will be unfamiliar with the romanization (or often don’t even know which language it’s coming from), the latter sort of transliteration is more useful. Egg foo young, not egg fuyung, egg furong, or daan fuyung.
Not sure what the issue would be here. I don't think it would be accurate to transliterate ปู as "buu" but instead "bpuu". Same with /d/t/th, as these can be written just fine like ใด - dai and ไต - dtai for instance. It can't capture everything, but it's impossible to anyhow because English doesn't have consonant classes like Thai does.
I was going to write something completely different, but I discovered that the Thai word for koi is ปลาแฟนซีคาร์ป, and think everyone who can read Thai phonetically should know that.
Not an expert on Thai linguistics, but a phonology enthusiast who's skimmed the phonology section of the Wikipedia article for the Thai language, and I thought I'd provide my understanding of why this confusion occurs. (It's similar to a common issue in romanisation of Standard Chinese.)
The consonant group in question is the "velar plosives", so-called because they are produced by the sudden release of air blocked behind the tongue and the velum. In English, this includes the k and g sounds.
There are two relevant modifiers that can be applied to consonant sounds: voice and aspiration. Voice is the vibration of the vocal chords. If you touch your throat, you will feel the difference between s and z. Aspiration is the "h-iness" of some sounds, where a short burst of breath is produced alongside the consonant.
In common English dialects, the k sound is unvoiced and aspirated, whereas the g is voiced and unaspirated. The two properties go hand in hand, so either can be used to distinguish the consonants. (0)
In Thai (as I understand it), there is an unvoiced and aspirated sound, and an unvoiced and unaspirated sound. So whether these two sounds are interpreted as k/g or two varieties of k (kh/k) is ultimately arbitrary.
Pinyin, the most common romanisation scheme for Standard Chinese, went down the "k/g" route. It sounds like RTGS goes down the "kh/k" route instead.
---
(0) In actual speech, this apparently clean distinction is much more blurry for a variety of reasons, but it's a good enough approximation for this purpose. For the interested you can Google "fortis and lenis".
Actually it all have to do with aspiration, e.g a small puff of air coming out when saying the sound. Or in the case with ก , it is a k without any air coming out is probably the most accurate description but writing g is therefore closer then a real k that have aspiration. :) You can test this yourself with holding your hand in front of your mouth saying english k and then stop any air from coming out. There you have the correct sound for ก
Interesting. I don't know about Thai, but for Mandarin, the issue is similar - g/k, d/t, b/p in English all are (voiced and unaspirated) or (unvoiced and aspirated), while what's in Pinyin denoted g/k, d/t, b/p is (unvoiced and unaspirated) or (unvoiced and aspirated).
In other words, if you put the 4 combinations in a square, in English (and German), 2 are used that are on a diagonal, while in Mandarin, 2 are used that are in the same row (or column, as the case may be). In Hindi apparently are 4 are used.
ETA: Wikipedia says this: "Between pairs of stops or affricates having the same place of articulation and manner of articulation, the primary distinction is not voiced vs. voiceless (as in French or Russian), but unaspirated vs. aspirated (as in Scottish Gaelic or Icelandic)."
It's not an internet thing, "Ph" is pronounced like F almost everywhere in English, e.g. "Gopher" or "Phone". It makes little sense to transliterate a non "F" sound to Ph.
( And apparently this practice has roots from the even older transliteration of Phi )
I'm in greater Seattle so maybe I'm biased, but holy basil is available in Asian groceries from time to time, you just have to go looking and jump on it when you find it.
Otherwise, Amazon has seeds to grow your own, so if you like phad ka prow (which I do), this is not on the same level as world peace.
You can get holy basil at Mekong Market on Rainier. You definitely can't find it at Fred Meyer or Safeway or QFC; you can't even find it at Asian Family Mart.
If there's a will, there's a way of course, but lack of easy sourcing means friction, and friction means not all Thai restaurants in the US will have it on their menu. I would be surprised if a Thai restaurant in Des Moines, Iowa served pad gaprao, whereas pad thai is universal at all US Thai restaurants.
It is widespread across India, both as a weed and grown in houses, gardens and temples, and there is a lot of religious and cultural stuff around it.
Edit: it is also supposed to have some medicinal value, so is added to herbal teas along with other common spices like ginger, turmeric, pepper, cardamom, clove, cinammon, etc.
Didn't realize they used Tulsi. I've been using regular Basil instead!
Surprising that Tulsi is so rarely used in Indian cooking.
When I think about it, fragrant fresh herbs are very seldom used in Indian cooking, outside of coriander (mostly used as garnish). Even mint is used only in certain dishes.
As you said it varies by region. Certainly Kasuri methi (dried) is most commonly used form in Pakistan. You are right about mint chutney but that is condiment.
Pudina (mint) chutney is ubiquitous, often mixed with fresh green coriander leaves (hara dhaniya).
>When I think about it, fragrant fresh herbs are very seldom used in Indian cooking, outside of coriander (mostly used as garnish).
Somewhat true, but would vary by region. Curry leaf usage is widespread in South India. Just had an egg curry today with curry leaf (and other) flavoring, with chapatis, at a Kerala restaurant in a non-Kerala town. With raita and chopped onion and chilis on the side. :)
Methi (fenugreek) is used as a green and cooked and eaten, apart from use in parathas. Methi thepla (like paratha but from a different region, Gujarat / Rajasthan), is so tasty (to me) that I can eat it by itself. :)
And if you extend the definition of fresh (but not necessarily fragrant, some are neutral in smell) herbs to greens used like spinach, India has a wide variety of such greens that are eaten on a regular basis in different parts of the country. For example, many kinds of keerai in South India, including amaranths, palak, siru keerai, thandu keerai, agathi keerai, and many more. It's just that they are not much offered at mainstream Indian restaurants in India or abroad, AFAIK. That's because such restaurants are conservative and mainly make what sells the most.
Also called Ocimum sanctum. There are a few different varieties of holy basil, too. Some are mostly used for their medicinal value and some for cooking. I'm not 100% sure which type is used in Thai cuisine, though.
Yes. When I first googled for holy basil Wikipedia, to post about it here, I was a bit surprised to see that other second name, because I too knew it earlier only by the sanctum second name.
>There are a few different varieties of holy basil, too.
Right. A few I know of are Krishna tulasi, Rama tulasi, vana tulasi (maybe some overlap there). Those names are mentioned in some Ayurvedic medicines that include tulasi as an ingredient, IIRC.
The most delicious Thai meal (with Chinese origins) is in my opinion Kaow Soi Gai. Don’t think it’s easy to get in the Western world at Thai restaurants. Perhaps more of a Northern Thai food.
Very delicious as well. Didn’t know the name but Googling the name I recognize the photos. My girlfriend cooks this meal quite often for me (she is Thai and we live in Chiang Mai province).
I used to only order pad thai, but found they vary so much place to place there's a 50/50 shot I'll hate it. Some smother with cilantro, and I'm on of those weird anti cilantro people. Some use a peanut sauce. Some use crushed peanuts. Some use whole nuts. Just to name a few variables. I think the worst I had was just rice noodles, cilantro, whole nut pieces, and egg pieces. And that was all.
Anymore I find drunken noodles(Thai spicy) pretty reliable. I have no idea if it's even an authentic dish, but it seems more consistent.
I'm still sad that my favorite pad thai (-selling restaurant) vanished overnight. They definitely vary a lot, and I also avoid it somewhat for that reason, but when you find one that fits all your requirements it's great.
Do they use the immature peanuts or the mature harder ones? Somehow, when used in dishes, I am okay with the former, but don't like the latter. Okay with both for eating plain.
I grow my own holy basil in a hydroponic garden to make proper krapao at home. It’s the dish I miss most from Thailand. I’ve considered making a food blog that rates Thai restaurants by their krapao as I’ve noticed if that dish is good the entire place is usually fantastic. There’s one place close to my home that is just as good or better than I can make, which is high praise, and very dangerous because sometimes I’m lazy and need to have it.
Also I’d be remiss to not mention how amazing it is with prik nam pla, a simple spicy umami sour condiment that makes it explode with flavor. And a fried egg, especially if it’s a Thai fried egg. Best dish in the world to me!
Same. An Aerogarden makes it very easy to grow the stuff all year round. In the summer, I transplant some into the garden as well. It's a weed and before too long I generally have way too much.
Regular basil will work, it is peppery, especially if fresh and in larger quantities, it obviously isn't the same but it will get you close enough and it still tastes spectacular.
This is one of my favorite dishes. It only takes a couple ingredients (ground meat, fish sauce, peppers, basil plus optionally palm sugar and maybe some garlic) and only takes a couple minutes on the wok. Really cant be beat!
In the Muslim South you often find it made with chopped beef, never ground (and obviously never pork). Pretty interesting that way too, but by default spicier than I can handle.
My wife is Thai and she taught me how to cook this. I make it every Saturday for our lunch. I can only get a reasonable approximation as they don't sell the Holy Basil locally here in AU and the variety of chillies is limited but still, I get a thumbs up every time. Of course, an egg on top and washed down with a cold beer.
It varies at my local Thai supermarkets. But my Thai friends preferred buying it from Bunnings because otherwise they might be tempted to get it dried and it’s just not the same.
In Burma it’s known as (ohn no) kauk swe - means (coconut) noodles in Burmese. It might actually originally be a Shan word - but yes likely the dish originated from present day Myanmar. One of my favourite dishes!
I have a Thai sister-in-law, and I've been to Thailand, so I'm embarrassed to admit I've never heard of this (of course I got sick in Thailand and couldn't stand to even look at the food, so that might have something to do with it).
I have to think there's some place in California where you can get holy basil. Amazingly enough, near me the Asian markets don't have galangal, but the Whole Foods does.
Also: don't forget the most important part of a pad khrapao... an egg fried floating on a lake of oil in a wok, until crispy and bubbly edges start to run across it [1]. Otherwise, it's a little too salty.
It's cool to see how the Thai government has used food / restaurants as a form of diplomacy. This video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W09QCLmnCUU) elaborates more but the ratio of Thai Americans to Thai restaurants is high (300k pop. to 5k restaurants) because of Thai government efforts.
I grew up in a predominantly white midwestern US city and even we had a lot of Thai restaurants, maybe even more than Chinese or Indian. People really liked pad kee mao, pad see ew but Pad kaphrao never seemed to catch on (no product market fit haha).
It'll be interesting to see if these efforts will actually make the dish more popular - from its base ingredients (ground meat, rice, basil, and egg) it definitely seems like something Americans could get behind
> It's cool to see how the Thai government has used food / restaurants as a form of diplomacy. This video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W09QCLmnCUU) elaborates more but the ratio of Thai Americans to Thai restaurants is high (300k pop. to 5k restaurants) because of Thai government efforts.
Something I notice whenever I visit a Thai restaurant (which is often, since I enjoy Thai food a lot) is how much effort they put in making the decor represent the country. Of course, many ethnic restaurants have decoration influenced by the culture, but in the case of Thai restaurants there's a much heavier focus on the country - with flags, pictures of royalty, &c.
Sometimes it really seems like one big PR scheme.
Living in northern Europe, btw. No idea if it's like this everywhere.
I love making this and it is probably my favorite Thai dish. I got holy basil and red holy basil seeds off eBay just to save myself the trouble of finding fresh holy basil.
Tip #1 is get a mortar and pestle and make your own chili garlic paste using real thai chilis. Doing that seems to bless the dish with a pervasive but not overpowering heat.
Tip #2 is don't sweat it if you only have Italian or Thai basil. Sure it's not right but it's still delicious.
I prefer ground pork for the meat. It's delicious and insanely cheap.
A lot of restaurants will list this on the menu as "basil <meat(i.e. beef)> instead of some variant of "pad grapow".
Agree, I’ll use sweet basil (labeled Thai basil) and it can work okay for the dish!
The quality of the ground pork matters - especially in American grocery stores the ground pork smells like cat food. If it’s pink all the way through and looks ultra processed, it’s probably not good.
I've occasionally tried tarragon as a substitute for Thai Basil. It's not perfect but it does a similar job. I'd be curious to know if anyone else has tried this and what they thought?
During the worst of Covid we were making $herb $meat, following the pok pok thai basil chicken recipe using whatever herbs we could get at the farmer's market and whatever meat showed up in our weekly grocery box. The best was shiso lamb, though I don't think people who can source Thai basil will have better luck with shiso
Sorry, was half asleep when I read that and thought you meant the meat.
I don't know, I like it rather fine. I think it distributes the heat more evenly and results in a more pleasant burn. Now, it shouldn't be food-processor smooth. I did a batch in a vitamix once and didn't like that as much as from the mortar and pestle.
There are Kaphrao boom in Bangkok for last 10 years or so. Previously it was cheap, fast food dish that is common in central Thailand, but it has since been researched, experimented, and elevated. If you wife aren't from central Thailand and hasn't really been back for the past 10 years she probably doesn't really connect with it.
I can see why American restaurants vary considerably. The original looks quite plain - meat, basil on rice. Not gonna sell well on a picture menu in an American Thai restaurant?
holy basil / tulsi is actually really easy to grow in case anyone is wondering. I got some seeds and basically did nothing to it but occasionally water and I have more than I know what to do with.
90 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 147 ms ] threadIt's not that easy to replicate because of its main ingredient: holy basil. This is not normal basil or Thai basil. Holy basil is a specific kind of basil that tastes peppery and is not commonly available in the U.S. (but grows like weeds in Thailand).
It is an iconic dish in Thailand. When food vlogger Mark Wiens opened his first restaurant PhedMark, he choose to specialize in pad gaprao and nothing else because it was the national staple.
BEFRS review here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3ticHfFo2Q
Anyway! If you need a decent {ph,p}a{t,d} {k,g}ap{h}rao and are not in Thailand, I can warmly recommend Greyhound Cafe, which has branches in Singapore, Hong Kong, Manila and London: https://www.greyhoundcafe.co.th/
But really, are any of them “grapao” with the r on the first syllable? I always thought that was just a mistake we foreigners make because we don’t learn it as กะเพรา.
https://www.standard.co.uk/reveller/restaurants/greyhound-ca...
I'll die on this hill but ก as g is clearly a more accurate than k. Like, you wouldn't pronounce ไก่ as "kai" (ไข่/ไหค่/etc) it's so much more clear to say "gai(lowtone)".
Point being that even the official romanization sucks.
And your solution works for /k/ and /kh/, but runs into problems when you have a three-way contrast (/b/p/ph/ and /d/t/th). You can't write "buu" for "crab" just because you think it sounds like an English "b"; you need "b" for the actual /b/ sound.
I don't really think it matters, no one is consistent, no transliteration covers all cases. Unless maybe ipa? (which no one uses to communicate anyway).
But it's silly to say that it's the best system just because it is easiest for people like yourself.
I do think something IPA-inspired (k/kh, b/p/ph, d/t/th) is consistent and still usable. It will also encourage better pronunciation (at least for somewhat serious students) if they are trying to say the correct sound (unaspirated /k/) instead of approximating it with an English phoneme that isn't used in Thai (voiced /g/).
But I do think that an intuitive system is better than an IPA inspired system, and that's purely because of the fact that only 1% of people will be using it and understanding it. The other 99% will be using other, random, variations. However an intuitive system will at least catch most people who speaks English.
Any romanization that is more than "close enough" is a waste of time though, when compared to simply learning to write in Thai.
I would argue that since food names are usually pronounced by non-speakers who will be unfamiliar with the romanization (or often don’t even know which language it’s coming from), the latter sort of transliteration is more useful. Egg foo young, not egg fuyung, egg furong, or daan fuyung.
The consonant group in question is the "velar plosives", so-called because they are produced by the sudden release of air blocked behind the tongue and the velum. In English, this includes the k and g sounds.
There are two relevant modifiers that can be applied to consonant sounds: voice and aspiration. Voice is the vibration of the vocal chords. If you touch your throat, you will feel the difference between s and z. Aspiration is the "h-iness" of some sounds, where a short burst of breath is produced alongside the consonant.
In common English dialects, the k sound is unvoiced and aspirated, whereas the g is voiced and unaspirated. The two properties go hand in hand, so either can be used to distinguish the consonants. (0)
In Thai (as I understand it), there is an unvoiced and aspirated sound, and an unvoiced and unaspirated sound. So whether these two sounds are interpreted as k/g or two varieties of k (kh/k) is ultimately arbitrary.
Pinyin, the most common romanisation scheme for Standard Chinese, went down the "k/g" route. It sounds like RTGS goes down the "kh/k" route instead.
---
(0) In actual speech, this apparently clean distinction is much more blurry for a variety of reasons, but it's a good enough approximation for this purpose. For the interested you can Google "fortis and lenis".
Thank you.
ETA: Wikipedia says this: "Between pairs of stops or affricates having the same place of articulation and manner of articulation, the primary distinction is not voiced vs. voiceless (as in French or Russian), but unaspirated vs. aspirated (as in Scottish Gaelic or Icelandic)."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology#Con...
( And apparently this practice has roots from the even older transliteration of Phi )
Otherwise, Amazon has seeds to grow your own, so if you like phad ka prow (which I do), this is not on the same level as world peace.
If there's a will, there's a way of course, but lack of easy sourcing means friction, and friction means not all Thai restaurants in the US will have it on their menu. I would be surprised if a Thai restaurant in Des Moines, Iowa served pad gaprao, whereas pad thai is universal at all US Thai restaurants.
Ocimum tenuiflorum:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocimum_tenuiflorum
It is widespread across India, both as a weed and grown in houses, gardens and temples, and there is a lot of religious and cultural stuff around it.
Edit: it is also supposed to have some medicinal value, so is added to herbal teas along with other common spices like ginger, turmeric, pepper, cardamom, clove, cinammon, etc.
Surprising that Tulsi is so rarely used in Indian cooking.
When I think about it, fragrant fresh herbs are very seldom used in Indian cooking, outside of coriander (mostly used as garnish). Even mint is used only in certain dishes.
Very regularly, actually.
Methi (fenugreek) paratha is popular wherever parathas are, which is large parts of India.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37398973
Okay.
>You are right about mint chutney but that is condiment.
True.
Pudina (mint) chutney is ubiquitous, often mixed with fresh green coriander leaves (hara dhaniya).
>When I think about it, fragrant fresh herbs are very seldom used in Indian cooking, outside of coriander (mostly used as garnish).
Somewhat true, but would vary by region. Curry leaf usage is widespread in South India. Just had an egg curry today with curry leaf (and other) flavoring, with chapatis, at a Kerala restaurant in a non-Kerala town. With raita and chopped onion and chilis on the side. :)
Methi (fenugreek) is used as a green and cooked and eaten, apart from use in parathas. Methi thepla (like paratha but from a different region, Gujarat / Rajasthan), is so tasty (to me) that I can eat it by itself. :)
And if you extend the definition of fresh (but not necessarily fragrant, some are neutral in smell) herbs to greens used like spinach, India has a wide variety of such greens that are eaten on a regular basis in different parts of the country. For example, many kinds of keerai in South India, including amaranths, palak, siru keerai, thandu keerai, agathi keerai, and many more. It's just that they are not much offered at mainstream Indian restaurants in India or abroad, AFAIK. That's because such restaurants are conservative and mainly make what sells the most.
Yes. When I first googled for holy basil Wikipedia, to post about it here, I was a bit surprised to see that other second name, because I too knew it earlier only by the sanctum second name.
>There are a few different varieties of holy basil, too.
Right. A few I know of are Krishna tulasi, Rama tulasi, vana tulasi (maybe some overlap there). Those names are mentioned in some Ayurvedic medicines that include tulasi as an ingredient, IIRC.
Careful ordering it though, as you’ll get plain rice if you don’t get the tone right!
I could move to Chiang Mai just for this dish.
Anymore I find drunken noodles(Thai spicy) pretty reliable. I have no idea if it's even an authentic dish, but it seems more consistent.
This is true in Thailand too fwiw
until you discover nam tok
Also I’d be remiss to not mention how amazing it is with prik nam pla, a simple spicy umami sour condiment that makes it explode with flavor. And a fried egg, especially if it’s a Thai fried egg. Best dish in the world to me!
Dirt cheap ($1-$1.5) and absolutely one of the best things I've ever eaten.
I did not expect reading an article about my favourite Thai dish first thing in the morning, on HN of, all places.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/A1RX1yzx4nPBM6dt9
(Also serving craft beers and small burgers.)
In the Muslim South you often find it made with chopped beef, never ground (and obviously never pork). Pretty interesting that way too, but by default spicier than I can handle.
Those are my Australian Holy Basil facts.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37388628
The contest website is:
https://worldkaphrao.com/
The 3 best recipes / winners:
https://worldkaphrao.com/index.php/worldbasilchamp/
I have to think there's some place in California where you can get holy basil. Amazingly enough, near me the Asian markets don't have galangal, but the Whole Foods does.
[1] https://tasteasianfood.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Pad-Kr...
I grew up in a predominantly white midwestern US city and even we had a lot of Thai restaurants, maybe even more than Chinese or Indian. People really liked pad kee mao, pad see ew but Pad kaphrao never seemed to catch on (no product market fit haha).
It'll be interesting to see if these efforts will actually make the dish more popular - from its base ingredients (ground meat, rice, basil, and egg) it definitely seems like something Americans could get behind
Something I notice whenever I visit a Thai restaurant (which is often, since I enjoy Thai food a lot) is how much effort they put in making the decor represent the country. Of course, many ethnic restaurants have decoration influenced by the culture, but in the case of Thai restaurants there's a much heavier focus on the country - with flags, pictures of royalty, &c. Sometimes it really seems like one big PR scheme.
Living in northern Europe, btw. No idea if it's like this everywhere.
Tip #1 is get a mortar and pestle and make your own chili garlic paste using real thai chilis. Doing that seems to bless the dish with a pervasive but not overpowering heat.
Tip #2 is don't sweat it if you only have Italian or Thai basil. Sure it's not right but it's still delicious.
I prefer ground pork for the meat. It's delicious and insanely cheap.
A lot of restaurants will list this on the menu as "basil <meat(i.e. beef)> instead of some variant of "pad grapow".
The quality of the ground pork matters - especially in American grocery stores the ground pork smells like cat food. If it’s pink all the way through and looks ultra processed, it’s probably not good.
I don't know, I like it rather fine. I think it distributes the heat more evenly and results in a more pleasant burn. Now, it shouldn't be food-processor smooth. I did a batch in a vitamix once and didn't like that as much as from the mortar and pestle.
actually making Pad kaphrao tonight!