Pad See Ew

Where it comes from

Pad see ew, 'fried with soy sauce,' is Thailand's branch of a noodle family that runs from Cantonese chow fun to Singapore's char kway teow — planted wherever Chinese wok cooks settled. Wide rice noodles meet dark soy, egg and Chinese broccoli in a screaming wok; the sugars scorch and the noodles blister. That faint, smoky bitterness — the breath of the wok — separates the real thing from a sauté. Ours blisters properly.