I don’t think there is a day where I’m not craving Pad Thai, and I know I’m not alone on this. One of my friends is so addicted to Pad Thai that after she went away to college, she would stock up on the local Pad Thai every time she came home. She would order several of them to go and pack them with her back to college the next day. Now that’s the kind of obsession I can get behind!
Pad Thai varies so much from place to place that I have a hard time ordering it anywhere other than my favorite spot. Over the 4 years that my husband and I traveled back and forth from Calgary to Montana on the weekends to see each other while we were immigrating, we drove right through Fernie B.C. There’s this great little place right off the main highway called the Curry Bowl.
Normally it’s the kind of place I would shy away from because they do a little bit of all kinds of cuisines from Thai to Indian. Usually this spells disaster because most restaurants trying to do it all fail across the board, but that’s not the case with the Curry Bowl. Every time we go, it’s this battle between their absolutely amazing Pad Thai and all the other delicious things on their menu, (like Red Curry Noodles with Shrimp, the Japanese Karaage, or the Panang Curry).
I usually cave and go with the Pad Thai because how often do you get a truly spectacular Pad Thai!?! Since we don’t pass through Fernie very often anymore, I’ve been trying to come up with a simple at home version with normal ingredients I can actually find at our local grocery store. As it would turn out, it’s pretty easy to get Pad Thai wrong at home, whether it’s overcooking the noodles, to not enough sauce, and the list keeps going on.
So I turned to one of my favorites, veggie noodles! First I tried zucchini noodles which are definitely good, but with all zucchini noodle dishes it’s easy for them to get overcooked and watery. One day a lightbulb finally came on and I decided to try sweet potato noodles which never get watery, and their sweet flavor turns out to be the perfect pairing for the flavors of Pad Thai.
