there is this drunken fried rice that every singaporean student must have taken at siam central charlotte street london.
my son brought me after the college ceremony on 27.8.2014.
i ordered the fried rice with beef, & my son ordered fried rice with pork & tom yam seafood soup.
basically, it was a spicy fried rice with egg, fresh chilli and thai holy basil. there was no wine in the rice so i wondered why drunken. it was later that i found out that a pad kee mao dish = “drunken stir-fry” dish (pad = stir-fry, kee mao = drunkard) it referred to the more intense, piquant taste of the dish, saltier and spicier etc, favoured by a drunkard (with dulled tastebuds?? haha)
i did not try the tom yam seafood. my son described it as between the very good tom yam talay at patara & the so-so one at thai noodle house.
the fried rice was indeed intense & flavourful & a bit oily, and the serving of beef & pork was quite large.
i was having an almost full-blown flu & my tastebuds would have been dulled, perhaps even more than drunkards. anyhow i did not find the fried rice too “exceptional”. i told my son (& of course he did not agree) that the fried rice was like the old holland road stall or any good zi char stall. i guess perhaps it was better. 🙂
for sure, it was not to be compared to crystal jade spicy seafood fried rice (which is my gold standard). i actually think my own seafood fried rice is also better. 🙂
c.h.e.f andy