MAENAM’S SIBLING
Sen Pad Thai gift to city
Someone should tell Angus An that he’s arrived and should relax. But the force is with him, a powerful drive that’s like a stuck gas pedal.
Last month, he opened Sen Pad Thai, the fifth in a series of notable food spots, the flagship being Maenam, which outpunches any competition for best Thai restaurant awards in Vancouver.
Sen Pad Thai follows the counter style of his Longtail Kitchen and Freebird Chicken Shack, both at New Westminster Quay’s River Market.
If they be fast food, bring it on! (I’ve beseeched An to open another Longtail closer to me. Lonsdale Quay would do, Angus.)
To recap, An graduated at the top of his class from the French Culinary Institute in New York, worked under Normand Laprise at the vaunted Restaurant Toque in Montreal, did gigs at The Ledbury, The Fat Duck, La Manoir aux Quat’Saison (all Michelin-starred) and then worked at Nahm in London, the first Michelin-starred Thai restaurant.
He opened the fine dining Gastropod in Vancouver in 2006 and rebranded to Maenam Thai restaurant in 2009 to surf the recession.
Then came Longtail Kitchen, Fat Mao Noodles (in Chinatown) and Freebird Chicken Shack (which just moved to a much larger location in River Market with an expanded menu).
Sen Pad Thai celebrates Thailand’s queen of dishes — pad thai, which took fifth spot on the world’s 50 most delicious foods in a CNN poll in 2011.
The dish was created in the name of nationalism in the 1930s, shortly after the revolution that ended absolute control by the monarchy.
The prime minister of the day held a contest for a national rice noodle dish to boost culture and move away from wheat noodles, seen as a Chinese import.
The cook, lost to history, deserves a footnote with his slam dunk. (However, there are those who argue the Chinese ate similar rice noodles.)
Moving on, there are five pad thai dishes on the Sen Pad Thai menu along with other dishes served over rice, snacks and sides.
Meals cost $12 to $15 (the latter if you throw in prawns). Regional variations of pad thai include the classic, as we know it, with the sweet, sour, salty sauce (tamarind, sugar and a bit of pandan syrup for perfume here). The kitchen adds the fish sauce at the last minute to accommodate vegetarians.
“I’m proud to serve the regional ones,” An says. “No one else does.”
I tried a couple of noodle dishes and a couple of rice dishes: pad thai with crabmeat (pad pu sen chan) and a northern style pad thai with crispy pork (pad mi korat), which were fresh and light with noodles that had spring to them.
The first is from Chanthaburi in southeastern Thailand and uses a thinner, chewier noodle and it’s reddened with chili paste.
“That’s why when it came to North America, ketchup was used to mimic it,” says An. I wished for stronger saucing with this dish — more tamarind, more fish sauce.
He buys moist rice noodles in Los Angeles, instead of using dried noodles, which require rehydrating and results in toosoft, soggy noodles, he feels. When soggy, the food can’t pick up the “wok’s breath” that comes with searing on high heat, adding hints of smokiness and a deeper flavour.
The northern style mi korat had more flavour, thanks to pork belly, which is fried and the noodles are cooked in its fat with Thai garlic.
Both noodle dishes had scatterings of Chinese chives good for bright, fresh, garlicky notes but were cut too long to incorporate into bites of food.
My favourite dish was pad ga pao, or chicken over rice. It was the most assertive dish I tried with darkly marinated (fish sauce, chili, garlic, oyster sauce) ground chicken, green beans, holy basil, peppers and oozyyolked fried egg over the rice.
Thai omelette with crab and sausage over rice is pure comfort. The eggs had some crunch from hitting a searing hot wok.
Rice sheet dishes are made with much broader noodles that are made locally with a tapioca base. It’s thinner and chewier than all-rice noodles. You can get them stir-fried with beef or pork.
There’s also a daily, everchanging curry and snack-sized crispy ribs, crispy wings, crispy side stripe prawns, papaya salad, steamed mussels, oyster pancake and roti with curry.
I tried a dessert, the black sticky rice in pandan and coconut, which was a simple sweet soup.
This certainly isn’t Maenam, but Granville Island sure beats a sterile food court if you want to grab a quick, inexpensive and tasty meal.
He buys moist rice noodles in Los Angeles, instead of using dried noodles, which require rehydrating and results in too-soft, soggy noodles, he feels.