oiled noodles

Faithful readers,

We're back. And better. Or we hope so...

On November 7, a cargo ship crashed into the Bay Bridge and flooded our iconic Bay with oil, killing thousands of birds and gunking up our shorelines. Most importantly, I had to work nonstop at my environmentalist day job. 14-hour work days left no time for sleep, but a girl has to eat.

Enter my workday standby, King of Thai Noodles. Two Powell locations: 5th street with bright purple walls and hectic O'Farrell. Both feature plentiful condiment carts full of hot and spicies and ground peanuts. Wonderful! The price is right - dollars cheaper than the fabulously fancy Osha Thai near Montgomery. And the noodles are plentiful, though they don't heat up that well (few pad thais do!). Tofu and egg reasonably plentiful. Sauce just right even without fish sauce, though I do heavily rely on the condiments mentioned previously. Lots of veggies crispily cooked. Tasty fried egg rolls, if you care about such sides. Cucumber salad made up up soggy cukes and bitter onions; ick. Ambiance is unremarkable at both places - service and purple haze taints the 5th Street shop and dingy walls and crowd brings down the Union Square bustle of O'Farrell.

I give King of Thai Noodles a combined 3.5 tofu chunks. A solid effort well worth lunch.

led

Bachelor Pad Thai

No bachelor pad would be complete without piles of empty take-out cartons. Particularily, if the pad was covered in cutesy photos of yarnballs and flowers. gbc called led for help on this endevor and they feasted on noodles from the local shop on the corner of 29th and church.

The noodle house was actually quite nice -- airy space without as much pretention as we expected from blow-me valley. Not nearly as over-the-top as Osha in our gritty frontyard! But we couldn't be swayed from take-out so that we could get back to our smelly charge: Cosmo the squat. We sat on two of an entire row of chairs devoted to taking pad thai to go! The wait wizzed by in no time at all.

Back at the bachelor pad, we dug into our tasty treats. The noodles were a nice consistancy without even a note of barnyard fishsauce. Lots of veggies; though we both agreed that pickled baby corn is gross-o to the max-o. Luckily Cosmo was there to eat led's scraps. gbc likely tucked them behind her ears for later. Yuck!

Just kidding about that last part. And if Cosmo puked later, then also scratch the previous sentence.

The pad thai, while delicious, lacked the richness and refined presentation that we desire. Therefore, we gave it a nice solid 3 of 5 tofu chunks. It's not likely that we'd tramp out to noe valley again, but if it was within a few blocks of our houses, we'd return.

Osha Thai Part 2

Dear faithful sfpadthai blog readers -

One important point left to discuss from our first excursion: leftovers. As we all know, nuked pad thai can result in a mess of dry yet gooey noodle glop. This is so disappointing, especially after a morning spent in the anticipation (while wasting work time while blogging) of a fantastic pad thai lunch!

I'm pleased to report that Osha Thai leftovers reheated well. The tofu, in particular, was a lovely crispy texture. I only regret not saving my lemon slice to add some moisture and pick-me-up flavor.

xoxo,
led

Next up:Will pad thai paired with an iced coffee soothe the unprecedented SF heat wave? There's only one way to find out.

An Introduction

After last night's heady first post, I thought that I (gbc) would take a step back and give you all a glimpse of the bigger picture.

Our Mission: This blog is dedicated to gbc and led's tireless pursuit of amazing pad thai in San Francisco. We will not stop till we have tried, and re-tried, and re-re-tried as take out, every pad thai in the city. The bay area. The World. To this end, if you have a recommendation, please do not hesitate. We will be sure to give you a much-coveted shout-out if you put us on the path to deliciousness.

HOW IT WORKS:We eat pad thai. Then we write about it. Then we eat our left-overs. Our system ranks the pad thai on a scale of one to five smiling tofu pieces, five being the highest.

ABOUT US: We are not Thai. We have never been to Thailand. In fact, part of what motivated us to create this blog is the fact that both gbc and led are such un-adventurous eaters that we wish only to eat vegetarian pad thai, and never have to branch out. Do not recommend any other Thai dishes to us. These recommendations will fall on deaf ears. The ears of those who can only hear one thing: pad thai.

Next Up:
This Block Ain't Big Enough For The Two Of Us-Or Is It?!
The tale of two Thai restaurants on the same block, both with their own charms and merits, and gbc's constant struggle to pick her favorite.
And...
Will LED Now Feel Pressured To Eat As Much Pad Thai As GBC Just So She Has Something To Blog About?
Can peer pressure turn a pad thai devotee into a pad thai glutton?

Osha thai in July

Well, we've already failed. We forgot to take a photo of our first documented pad thai research excursion. Sigh. The day was hot, though, and one of our two intrepid pad thai tasters was already drunk before we even selected a table. So it was to be expected. Yes, it was hot outside, but the atmosphere of Osha thai was cool, cool, cool. it started with a subtle techno beat when we walked in, and was complemented by the sleek modern decor. Chairs ripped from the future were one choice, and each table featured a rose so lush it could only have been grown with the most space-aged of technologies. The waiters also wore the latest in fab fashions, which also matched Gyllian's blouse. We got right to the point and ordered two veggie pad thais -- one eggless. They arrived festooned with fuscia blooms that may have been edible, but we didn't try them because we were too busy digging in to the pad thai.

Pad thai: Gyllian thought the noodles were rich & satisfying, though there could have been a better variety of veggies. Both gbc and LED thought there was a nice noodle to tofu ratio, though LED did mention a desire for more peanuts. Actually, when pressed, LED started whining about how much "stockage" there was on the broccoli. whatever that means. No, no. She's right. A nice short stock is the ideal for broccoli hoping to make an appearance in a pad thai dish. Has anyone else heard of something called Brocolini? anyway, if it exists, thats what we think was ruining the pad thai flow. This was very minor though, and so, out of a possible Five Tofu Chunks, we give Osha Thai FOUR!

where to start

Gyllian and Lola have found common ground: pad thai is delicious. Now we will share this uniting force with our city and beyond.