Drunken Noodles Aren't Made With Alcohol - So What's With The Name?

Drunken noodles, a Thai dish also known as pad kee mao, are sort of the to pad see ew's sesame chicken: a somewhat hotter, zingier version of a familiar dish. Rice noodles form a base upon which you can lay some kind of meat (usually chicken, but beef, pork, and shrimp are also options) and an assortment of vegetables, including broccoli, shallots, and bird's eye chiles. Whatever you add to it, it's a delight, managing to be sweet, spicy, and umami all at the same time.

(If you don't want it too spicy, you can always abide by .) Despite its eye-catching name, liquor is one ingredient that's conspicuously absent from most drunken noodle recipes — and its etymology has been subject to numerous unaccounted theories. Unlike, say, a "drunken grandma" slice of pizza, which is a "grandma slice" prepared with vodka sauce, the name of this dish doesn't come from copious amounts of alcohol.



So where does the name come from? Well, think of it less as an ingredient and more as a serving suggestion. Drunken noodles are best served soused "Pad kee mao," the Thai name for drunken noodles, literally translates to "stir-fried drunkard" — but seeing as the dish wasn't invented by Hannibal Lecter, it's fair to assume the name is figurative. One theory is that, well, drunken noodles taste really good when you're drunk on a late night.

After a nice beer or two, the starch of the noodles and the spice of the chiles is enough to pleasantly cut through whatever buzz you had going. Another theory is that they make for an excellent hangover cure, with ingredients simple enough to be sourced from the previous night's leftovers. (You'd be better off with , though — not to brag.

) A local story has it that a wife, irritated by her husband's incessant complaining when he drank, prepared him a dish loaded with as much spice as possible. This is, of course, impossible to verify, but it's interesting because, with a slight tweak, it's more or less identical to the popular (if similarly unverified) story of how Nashville hot chicken was invented. Funny how these things work out! Recommended.