Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Purple Pad Thai Restaurant


In search of the rich international cuisine, I am indeed blessed to have been born and raised (and now working) in Angeles City, Pampanga. If I will try and enter a new jargon in urbandictionary.com, I will put in Angeles City n. synonymous to 'melting pot'. Primarily because of the fact that almost all kinds of international meal can be found in this 'safer metro' sans this blog.

There have been quite a few thai-inspired nooks available for those craving for the lightly prepared, rich in aromatics and borders in the 'spicy-tangy' treats. For my initial blog, I will be showing one of the good finds available especially to those who haven't tried and would just want to dip their toes to something different. When you visit, don't forget to bring a camera with you as the food (and the decors) is facebook album worthy too.

PURPLE PAD THAI (Facebook account)

The resto is located at Lagman Building (right next to Systems Plus College Foundation and Seven Eleven), McArthur Hi-way, Balibago in the hear of Angeles City. If you are coming from dowtown Angeles, it is located at the right side of the road. Now for those coming from Mabalacat area, or far north, it is will be on your left. The place is not hard to find as it is beside a national highway and majority of the available passenger utility jeepneys (PUJs) pass by this area.

Words of caution though, don’t be fooled by the seemingly 'small/tight' look you will be welcomed with when you come in. There is a loftier, more spacious area on the 2nd floor.  Fixtures take on a rather minimalistic-modern look and there is that sense of ‘clean’ aura vibrating from the place (an important factor for me).  Lastly, as the establishment's name suggest, there are plenty of 'purple' around the place.
This is one of the rather interesting things about the place, they have a chalk-board where the menu can be found (I’m not sure though if they have updated this one, I really need to visit the place again).



Now on to the food.  The good thing with Purple Pad Thai is that unlike the typical restaurant serving international cuisine, it does not intimidate.  By that I mean, food line-up and the way they are described (yes, there are descriptions) will make any 1st timer comfortable asking and exploring the menu.  Each table will also be entertained (while waiting for the food) with various Thailand cuisine trivia (I just hope they do some updates and changes though every so often for the benefit of the frequent visitors).

What did I try when I dropped by this purple haven?  My top one agenda was to taste their PAD THAI.  Since the closing of Spencers (snif), I haven’t had a really good Pad Thai for a while.  Since I was with a friend at that time who has not tried any thai dish yet, we also ordered some PAPAYA SALAD and I made him try the THAI FISH CAKES (memories of Singapore flashing now).  For the drinks, the waiter recommended that we try the THAI ICE TEA.

 Pad Thai

Fish Cake

Papaya Salad



From the updates I read in their FB account, there have been so much food added already in their menu.  Even desserts.  And sorry, I will not include them yet here as a rule I made for this blog is unless I tasted it, I won’t write about it.  Shop is open Monday to Sunday 11am to 10pm....Ehe, so much for my first take.  Try it, and enjoy a taste of Thailand without ever shelling out a plane ticket ride.