- Okay. Hey, everyone. Hope you're having an amazing day. It's Mark Wiens. We just arrived to Ang Thong,
which is right in central... Right in the heart of Thailand. We're on our way today for lunch to eat at a place called Pad Thai Ba Lek, which is a lady. She's 85 years old, and she's been making pad
thai for over 45 years. So it's gonna be an honor. We're gonna go to her restaurant. We're gonna see her make pad thai. Feels good to be in the
countrysides, the rice fields. Okay, we're on our way to go eat pad thai. (emphatic, rhythmic music) (rustling gravel) Oh, man, the breeze under
this mango tree is wonderful. And, yeah, it was about an hour and a half drive from Central Bangkok. We are in the province
and I think pretty close to the city of Ang Thong, but we're in the countryside. It's beautiful out here. The breeze. The rice fields are in
full green, yellow blossom. Just a few kilometers down the road should be the restaurant. (door opens)
(engine idling) (door shuts)
(airy, rhythmic music) (lively rhythmic music) (door shuts) This is an amazing location
next to a canal of water. There's a really old... Okay, there's a modern bridge
that you can drive across. Then there's this ancient,
old, rickety, wooden bridge. It's so peaceful. We got a parking right under
this beautiful shade tree, and then the whole restaurant is kind of under a shelter with tables. I love this style of a restaurant. (rattling) (background conversations
in foreign language) (steaming and sizzling) (metal scraping) (taps)
(metal scraping) She's a legend. She's over 85 years old, and
she's still making pad thai. She's cooking at the
back of the restaurant burning only wood so
you get the wood smoke. You can smell the aroma of
the fire, the combustion, but I kinda came around to the back so I could see her from the
front where she's cooking. And she's right in the middle of a batch. She makes it by a whole
wok batch, all the noodles. Just juices and sauces
are just sloshing around. Then she only uses duck eggs. So then, when she's finishing a batch, she adds on the duck eggs
kind of into portions, kind of like divvying out the portions. Hopefully, we'll see the
entire process from the start after she finishes this batch. But just the way she works like not fast, just methodically, slowly dropping in those duck eggs with one hand, sloshing them around,
stirring them around, scrambling them into the pad
thai noodle sloshy mixture. (metallic clanging)
(plastic ruffling) The rice noodles are
first soaked in water, and then they're fried once. It's dry chili? Like dried chili, right? She adds in dried chili as well as hom dang, which are shallots. And that just gives the
noodles their primer, prepares them for the real fry, for the real slosh in all of the sauces. And then they go into
another pan to be fried again with the eggs, with more sauce, with lard to give it the final flavor. Okay, she's about to
start a fresh, new batch. (tapping) (speaking in foreign language) (sizzling oil) (speaking in foreign language) (sizzles) (speaking in foreign language) (loud, metallic banging) (sizzling oil) (banging and scraping metal) (sizzling)
(scraping) (clanks) (laughs) (clanks) (clanks) (speaking in foreign language) (metallic banging) (scraping) The more I watch her as
she makes the pad thai... I don't even know if I
would call it stir-frying because it's such a juicy, such a sloshy mixture
of sauces and noodles. It's so wet. It's a wet fry. She controls the fire here
because she also mentioned to me that she only burns wood
so that she gets the flame so that she can control the fire but also because it's a batch,
she cooks it by the batch, it's not like a scorching... You get the smokiness from
the actual burning of the wood but not from the heat of the wok. But just the way she has it mastered down. Again, she could, by all means, make pad thai with her eyes closed. Just the methods, the system, the process which she has
developed and practiced for over 45 years and mastered. That is mastery. But then to get her batch started, what she does is, I believe
she adds in some lard, then tosses in the noodles, then a few scoops of a
mixture of palm sugar syrup as well as tamarind
sauce and pours that in, and it just kinda sloshes
around the noodles in that sauce in that caramelly syrup thickness. And that bubbles away, but it's a really a matter
of mastering the technique and also mastering the fire and the heat because I can guarantee that
if you don't have experience, if you don't know what you're doing, you'll end up with like a
clump, a blob of noodles that will all stick together, but she keeps the noodles separately. She knows how to control the fire, knows how to control the different sauces to pair with the noodles. And then she just kinda
works that in slowly. She works it slowly. And then I just love how
she drops in the eggs. (taps) (banging metal) (speaking in foreign language) (sizzling)
(metallic banging) (scraping metal) (loud sizzling) (woman speaking in foreign language) (sizzling) (banging on metal) (speaks in foreign language) And then right before serving, what she does is she takes a handful of thua ngok, which are bean sprouts, tosses them on top, and just
folds it into the noodles just so they slightly wilt
under the heat of those noodles and then puts it onto your
plate, and that's a portion. And I'm sure they get their
banana blossoms right from here even the green mango. Everything is right from here. That is a big banana blossom right there (woman speaks in foreign language) used to garnish pad thai. (lively, rhythmic music) There's a little dog
underneath the table (laughs). (woman speaking foreign language) There's two different
versions you can get, right? Just the normal and the pi-se. Pi-se comes with two eggs, so I got pi-se. And I think the eggs are both kinda like folded within your noodles. (rattling metal) Chopsticks eat with chopsticks (mutters). I love these high benches with the tables, but quickly, before I start eating, before I taste test... Or should I taste test
first before I tell you? Yeah, maybe I should
taste this right now first while it's hot and fresh. But I just wanted to tell you
a little bit about pad thai, about the history of pad thai. And also, pad thai is not... It's not a dish that I
actually eat very often. It is one of the most
well-known Thai dishes, and it is popular in Thailand as well. But just because there's
so many other dishes, and pad thai tends to be kinda
like on the sweeter side, it's not usually my personal favorite, but I am very excited
to try this pad thai, one, because she's such a legend. She makes only one dish, and she has perfected it. And no matter what, I respect
that, and I love that. So it is a true honor to be
here, to taste her plate. Once she dishes out your plate
of pad thai from the wok, then they sprinkle on a
spoonful of crushed peanuts and then a few... Sometimes, it's chives, but she's using green onions. (background conversations
in foreign language) Mm. Oh, wow. (smacks) The texture of the noodles is amazing. It's so... They're elastic-y. You could probably tie
something up with them, but at the same time (dog yelps loudly) Whoa. (people speaking in foreign language) There's the little dog (mutters). (speaks in foreign language) At the same time, they've
absorbed just the right amount of that makham, that palm
sugar, the tamarind, the sauces, the oil. You do taste sweet at first. Pad thai is always on the sweeter side, but then, at the same time,
the sweetness kinda mellows out because it's palm sugar. It's not that sharp sugar, processed sugar, like very sharp sweetness. It's more of a mellow sweetness, and the richness of those
yolks, those duck yolk eggs. You can see that the sauce is so thick. It just coats onto your chopsticks. It's so thick and sticky. (child speaking foreign language) With my chopstick (mutters). But really quickly, just to tell you a little about the history of pad thai, pad thai is not an ancient dish. It previously was not even a
traditional dish of Thailand. But it only dates back to the 1930s when the prime minister at that time... He was developing Thailand. He's the one who's responsible for even changing the name to Thailand, Thailand to Thailand. Back in the 1930s, the prime minister, his house help made a
noodle dish, kway teow. And kway teow is originally rice noodles originally from China, which were adapted into Thailand. But his house helper would
make a type of kway teow that maybe was her own style. She would fry the noodles, and the prime minister loved the noodles so much that he said, "Let's make this into a dish that unifies, "that brings the people
of Thailand together." And that's why it's called pad thai. That's why it's called stir-fried thai. And so that's when pad thai was created originally with Chinese roots, but then he added many
different Thai ingredients: protein sources, the eggs, the Thai ingredients like palm
sugar, like sour tamarind, and then balanced the
flavor so that it was sweet, so that it was sour, a little bit spicy, some of the herbs and
some of the ingredients that you can find right
in Central Thailand. Additionally, Ba Lek was
also mentioning that, originally, a traditional
version or an old version of pad thai was to be served with ma-fuang, which is starfruit, but then, after that,
when it wasn't the season or when there's no starfruit available, people started using green mango. So she still serves
green mango on the table to eat with your pad thai, and now even one step further, most of the time in Bangkok, you don't even find it
served with green mango. It's rare. I don't know if I've ever seen
it served with green mango, but it's served with just lime slices to squeeze on lime because it's faster. It's easier. It's more sour. It's less expensive. The green mango, that is awesome. And then, because I love sourness and also to balance that
sweetness, I'll squeeze on lime. In addition to the fresh accompaniments, we've also got some of the seasonings. There's fish sauce. There is extra sugar that you can put on. It's already very sweet, in my opinion, but some people even add extra sugar. And then the main thing that I want: (loudly opens container) Sprinkle on a little bit of chili flakes. Bump up the heat, and then just kinda stir this around. I wanna get some of that green
mango for sure in this bite. And then there's lime juice on here. There's chili to balance the flavor. And another reason why noodles, especially soup noodles but
also pad thai, other noodles, are so popular in Thailand is because they're so customizable. I mean, that's the reason they give you the different seasonings. If it's not salty enough for
you, you can add fish sauce. If it's not sweet enough
for you, you can add sugar. If it's not spicy enough for you, nobody minds if you add a lot of chili. (loud, airy music) Mm. (loud bang in background) With the green mango, it's amazing because the noodles are so sweet, but then, with that
burst of sour green mango and that crunch... Mm. That just fully complements
the sweetness for me. Then with that spicy dried
chili smokiness at the end. I'm gonna squeeze this
with a little more lime just to give it a sharpness of lime. (airy music) And I'll take a time-out to
chase with a banana blossom. In Thai, it's called huapli. It's also almost mandatory
to serve with pad thai. Normally, it's actually
cooked in different dishes, but this is one of the only
dishes where you eat it raw. And it's always available with pad thai. (smacks) Yeah. It's chalky, doesn't actually
have a lot of flavor, almost like a side of milkiness and a little bit of sweetness, but it is kinda like chalky. It's kinda dry, I think. But for me, the benefit
is when you're taking a bite of pad thai and it's kinda sweet, the banana blossom just kinda
like completely cleanses, and then that rejuvenates your taste buds and then you can take
another bite of pad thai. (slow, airy music) And you're like really feel the flavors of the pad thai even more exuberantly after taking a bite of the banana blossom (loud, rhythmic music) She's gonna make a new batch. (loud, rhythmic music) Mm. I could eat every bite
with an entire 50/50 ratio of green mango to the noodles. Mm. I think the green mango
is what makes it for me. (airy piano music) (loud, rhythmic music) And I'm getting down to my last
few bites of my first plate, but as I keep on eating it, you can really taste the richness of it, the amount of lard in
here, the duck egg yolks. It is rich. It's hardy. It's warming. (loud, airy music) (taps) (loud, airy music) I haven't even had any water yet, but they also use the
really old-style Thai cups. I think they're made from aluminum, and it's all self service at the front. You can serve yourself water. I love these cups, too. (reverberating piano music) (woman laughs) As I continue to eat it, you
could get the richness of it, that lard, the eggs, the yolks. It was very good for a plate of pad thai. And just the history in that dish and the history in Ba Lek herself and how long she's been making it, how she's mastered pad thai. But again, pad thai just in
general is not my favorite dish. It is a little too sweet
for me to eat regularly. But that being said,
I did really enjoy it. I enjoyed this entire experience, and just getting to taste her pad thai that she's been making so long, that she's been perfecting for so long. She is a legend of pad thai. And my utmost respect to her there. She's so nice as well. She's so welcoming. And it's still completely family-run. It's her daughters that also help. And so that was an honor to
have this chance to drive here, to come here, to spend time, hanging out, to watch her as she
methodically, expertly, again, mastering-ly
prepared that pad thai. And then, yeah, that was just a lot of fun and a learning experience for me. So that's it for this video. I'll have all the information
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