If you suddenly get bored of Thai tourist street food, and «your heart would ask for» ™ something really authentic, for a place where like really no one speaks any English, not even a word, – “I’ve got something for you”.

Chef Chiva Som told us about the place under the pretext of “the excellent pad thai they serve there”.

Like all the decent trash places, this one is open after 18:00, at sunset.

First, you should show the driver this, and he’ll bring you right here. If you’re lucky enough.

“In front of 7-Eleven!” they’re crying.

“Hell, no!” Thai military marketing™ in action: there are two 7-Eleven stores next to each other (WHYYYYY?), and both are packed with the same street food. You need the second one to the left, if you’re facing both stores.

Right in front of it, there’s a cart with the desired pad thai.

They have only one type of pad thai, oh well, actually, two – for 40 and 50 Baht. No one knows what’s the difference, non-Thai language speakers were not found around.

They nod – like they ask us to sit down.

We take a seat at the table. Right behind us there’s a glassy, cold and shining portal of 7-Eleven: we go there to get some water and Japanese sugar-free tea. Believe me, no one there will be upset with you because of bringing outside drinks into the restaurant. They have their own atmosphere there (c).

They serve us something green, meanwhile we’re watching our food being prepared (or it’s someone else’s food): when you see this hissing sea of oil, horrors start to overwhelm you, especially if you’ve been on the Chiva Som’s two-weeks detox and haven’t even seen a salt cellar for a long while.

But… somehow incomprehensibly (probably, they squeeze it out or something?) the final stuff you get on your plate and feel in your mouth doesn’t provoke any negative feelings. Obviously, it’s not dietary food. But when you, for example, are having some fast food burger, you do feel FAAAT enter your body and comfortably settle just around you waist (if you still have it), like some life buoy.

Here, on the contrary, you don’t feel any of that. And if I hadn’t seen the cooking process, but just had got a prepared dish, I’d never have believed it.

It’s tasty. Really good: noodles in slightly tamarind sauce, barely sweet, crispy sprouts, omelet, mussels and shrimps – tasty, if you mix it all together.

The price of 1 Euro makes it even tastier.

People at the next tables were getting some “fried kittens” and fruit frappe. Overall, walking along the food row, Gogol’s writings come to mind: “it’s all eyes and paws, eyes and paws” (c).

Pretty much everything’s in here, you name it: sweet, strange, fish spinning on a motorized grill like on a postmortem carousel, juices, noodles, hell knows what.

Do enjoy, why not?