Pad see ew (ผัดซีอิ๊ว — literally "stir-fried soy sauce") is a Thai wok dish of wide flat rice noodles (sen yai) stir-fried with Chinese broccoli (gai lan), egg, and protein — typically chicken, pork, or beef. The dish takes its name and distinctive dark colour from black sweet soy sauce (si-io dam), a very dark, slightly sweet, deeply pigmented sauce that forms a caramelised coating over the noodles in the hot wok. Light soy sauce, oyster sauce, and a small amount of fish sauce round out the flavour. The resulting stain is among the darkest in Thai cuisine — significantly darker than pad thai (which uses tamarind and fish sauce as its primary colour base) and approaching the depth of char siu sauce. The wide flat rice noodles are broad enough to spread the sauce across a large area on carpet contact, distinguishing pad see ew from dishes with thinner noodles.
Pad see ew cleaning steps
- Remove wide noodle pieces with a lifting motion — do not drag, as the flat surface of sen yai noodles is large enough to smear the dark soy sauce across additional fibres when dragged across the pile.
- Blot the soy sauce liquid across the full contact area immediately. The sauce is thinner than thick curry pastes and spreads with the noodle surface area on impact.
- Apply cornflour for the wok cooking oil and egg fat. Two rounds.
- Apply cold water and blot to dilute the soy compounds and sweet soy sugar.
- Apply dish soap solution (1 teaspoon per cup of cold water) and blot.
- Apply enzyme cleaner for 15 minutes — rice noodle starch, egg protein, and the oyster sauce protein component.
- Rinse thoroughly.
- Apply hydrogen peroxide (3%) for the dark colour. Si-io dam (black sweet soy) has caramelised sugar in addition to soy pigment compounds — the colour is intense and persistent. Plan for two to three rounds on light carpet. Oyster sauce adds its own dark residue on top of the soy base — assess after each round before adding another.
- Check for stickiness after drying — si-io dam has higher sugar content than light soy sauce and can leave a slightly tacky surface on carpet. Re-rinse if tacky.
Si-io dam — caramelised sugar makes it darker and stickier than regular soy sauce
Standard soy sauce (whether Thai, Chinese, or Japanese) gets its dark colour from the Maillard reaction during fermentation. Si-io dam (black soy sauce, also called "double black" soy sauce) adds molasses or palm sugar to the fermented soy base, which deepens the colour further through caramelisation and makes the sauce noticeably sweeter and thicker than regular soy sauce. The caramelised sugar component creates two additional challenges on carpet: it deepens the colour (requiring more hydrogen peroxide rounds than standard soy sauce), and it leaves a hygroscopic (moisture-attracting) sticky residue after drying that re-attracts dirt. The stickiness check after the full treatment sequence is particularly important for pad see ew — run a clean dry cloth across the dried treatment area and if it catches, apply one more water rinse.
Dark soy sauce colour from pad see ew not clearing from carpet?
Black sweet soy sauce pigment that has penetrated carpet pile may need professional hot-water extraction for complete resolution.
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Frequently asked
My pad see ew used extra-wide sen yai noodles (the freshest, widest variety). When the plate fell, the noodles spread out across a large carpet area. Does the wider noodle surface contact change the treatment?
Extra-wide sen yai noodles have a larger flat contact surface than thinner noodles of the same mass — they press the dark soy sauce into carpet fibres across a wider area per noodle piece. The stain perimeter from a fallen plate of extra-wide noodles can extend well beyond the initial impact point. Extend the full treatment sequence (cornflour, water, enzyme, peroxide) to cover the full noodle contact perimeter, not just the central pile. The total sauce volume deposited is the same as with narrower noodles — the challenge is the spread area rather than the concentration. Check the stain perimeter under light from an oblique angle after the carpet dries — a faint shadow around the main stain zone indicates the soy sauce spread was wider than the visible dark centre.
The pad see ew was cooked with wok hei — the high-heat char effect that adds a smoky note. There is a faint smoky smell in the carpet after cleaning. Is this from the soy sauce or from the char?
Wok hei (鑊氣 — "breath of the wok") is produced by the vaporisation of cooking oil droplets and soy sauce in the extremely hot wok, creating volatile aromatic compounds including alkylfurans, pyrazines, and sulphur compounds. These compounds are primarily volatile — they are more smell than stain, and the smell component deposits on nearby surfaces including carpet fibres within the cooking zone. After the main soy sauce stain is treated, a residual smoky-savoury odour suggests volatile wok hei compounds have settled into the pile. One baking soda overnight treatment (applied as dry powder, left 8+ hours, vacuumed) is usually sufficient to absorb and neutralise the wok hei volatile note. If the odour is strong, two nights of baking soda resolves it. The soy sauce pigment treatment and the wok hei odour treatment are independent steps.
The pad see ew contained Chinese broccoli (gai lan) with bright green leaves and stems. Some leaves were pressed into the carpet with the noodles. Does gai lan leave a green stain?
Chinese broccoli (gai lan) leaves contain chlorophyll — the same green pigment responsible for grass stains and other herb stains. When gai lan is pressed into carpet pile under the weight of the noodles and plate, the cell walls break and chlorophyll is released. The chlorophyll green is addressed by the hydrogen peroxide step — apply one targeted round of hydrogen peroxide specifically to the gai lan leaf contact areas after the main soy sauce peroxide treatment. The soy sauce dark colour and the gai lan green can overlap in the same area — the peroxide rounds address both. In practice, the gai lan chlorophyll is less colour-persistent than the si-io dam dark soy, so if the soy colour clears after two to three rounds, the gai lan green will have cleared at the same time or earlier.