Pad See Ew @ Mekong Thai Café
375 Stanley Rd, Bootle, L20 3EF
If there is a tiny chilli pepper printed next to an item on a menu it indicates that it is spicy, we know this much. But just how spicy, it’s impossible to tell. At least until you take your first bite.
There’s no agreed-upon system between restaurants, no international adjudicating body responsible for holding anyone to account.
Sometimes there’ll be a single chilli to indicate the spicier dishes, sometimes there’ll be a multi-chilli ranking system, other times there might be chillies of different colours (green for mildly spicy, red for extra hot etc.)
It is, if we’re being honest, complete anarchy.
I find that Thai restaurants generally have the best way of addressing the issue — they’ll simply ask you how spicy you want your food.
But the system is more sophisticated than this. The person serving you will take your answer, calibrate it against a variety of factors — the time of day, tone of your voice, how many bottles of Singha you’ve had — and determine a heat level, tailored just for your specificities.
So even when Thai restaurant menus feature the chilli icon, as is the case at the excellent Mekong Café in Bootle, they’re there more as a guide — an indicator of spice vibe — than anything else.
This means that you can trust that when the Tom Yum soup arrives — either as a single portion or in a metal pot for two — the earthy, thrumming heat of fresh galangal and ginger will be perfectly gauged.
The same is true of the stir-fried mussels, which are spiked with mouth-numbing chilli oil, and crispy chicken wings, which have the piquancy of fresh chilli and lime. Just right.
But if you’re still worried about the heat, maybe better to order something that isn’t spicy at all. Where Thai food is concerned that’s not always an easy task. Pad Thai is often a safe bet but can come sprinkled with fiery roasted chilli powder. I’ve even, on occasion, had green curries that made steam shoot from my ears.
In situations like this Pad See Ew is your best friend. A dish of flat noodles caramalised in soy sauce, it has smokiness, sourness, savouriness but no spice.
Mekong Café’s version — specifically the one with tender pieces of thin sliced beef — is among the best I’ve tasted.
There are ribbons of creamy scrambled egg, a deep, charred flavour in the dark sauce which clings to everything. The lack of heat also means individual flavours from the fried vegetables are allowed to sing — sweetness from carrot, a touch of bitterness from broccoli, nuttiness from beansprouts.
Delicious, and best of all you’re completely free of the tyranny of the tiny cartoon chilli.
