Sunday, 14 September 2025 - 11:00 am (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination: Asia / Asien Category/Kategorie: General, Bon appétitReading Time: 4minutes
Pad Thai (Thai: ผัดไทย), also spelled phat Thai or phad Thai, is a stir-friedrice noodle dish commonly served as a street food in Thailand as part of the country’s cuisine. It is typically made with rice noodles, shrimp, peanuts, scrambled egg, sugar and bean sprouts. The ingredients are fried in a wok.
Many of the ingredients are provided on the side as condiments, such as red chili pepper, lime wedges, roasted peanuts, bean sprouts, garlic chives, and other miscellaneous fresh vegetables. Vegetarian versions may substitute soy sauce for the fish sauce and omit the shrimp entirely.
Pad Thai was originally called “kuai tiao pad Thai” but this was later shortened to simply pad Thai. Kuai tiao (ก๋วยเตี๋ยว) is a Thai borrowing of the Teochew word guê diao (粿條), a type of thick Chinese rice noodle also known as shahe fen. The word kuai tiao has cognates in several other Southeast Asian countries where Chinese immigrants settled; with kuyteav in Cambodia, hủ tiếu in Vietnam, and kway teow in Malaysia and Singapore being analogues.
Although stir-fried rice noodles were introduced to Thailand from China centuries ago, the dish pad Thai was invented in the mid-20th century. Author Mark Padoongpatt maintains that pad Thai is “…not this traditional, authentic, going back hundreds of years dish. It was actually created in the 1930s in Thailand. The dish was created because Thailand was focused on nation-building. So this dish was created using rice noodles and it was called Pad Thai as a way to galvanize nationalism.”
Another explanation of pad Thai’s provenance holds that, during World War II, Thailand suffered a rice shortage due to the war and floods. To reduce domestic rice consumption, the Thai government under Prime Minister Plaek Phibunsongkhram promoted consumption of noodles instead. His government promoted rice noodles and helped to establish the identity of Thailand. As a result, a new noodle called sen chan pad Thai (named after Chanthaburi Province) was created. Pad Thai has since become one of Thailand‘s national dishes.
