Pok Pok Wing in Las Vegas adds a Pad Thai variation

Pad Thai Thamadaa wasn’t on the menu at the Las Vegas location of Pok Pok Wing when it opened with Block 16 Urban Food Hall a year ago, but the clamoring of fans who’d had it at the original Pok Pok in Portland changed that. James Beard Award-winning chef Andy Ricker said the recipe, which he acquired during trips to Thailand, dates back a generation or more and uses authentic ingredients such as pork fat instead of the more common vegetable oil, palm sugar instead of white sugar and tamarind juice instead of vinegar. To make it, the chef sautes rice noodles in the pork fat with tamarind, fish sauce, palm sugar, peanuts, dried tofu, dried shrimp, preserved radish, egg, garlic chives and bean sprouts and serves it as is or with ground pork, prawns or both. Block 16 Urban Food Hall is at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. The Pad Thai Thamadaa is $10 to $14.