Sadly I live in an area without Thai restaurants nearby, so I've been trying to make my favorite dish at home. It hasn't worked yet.
I have:
- Dark (sweet) soy sauce, both Healthy Boy and ABC brands.
- regular soy sauce
- oyster sauce
- vinegar, both rice wine and white
- fish sauce
- a good wok
- good rice noodles
I have tried:
- many recipes from the web, eg this one which usually combine dark soy + soy + oyster + sugar + water + maybe vinegar
- recipes from youtube, including Mark Weins: dark soy + soy + sugar
- using only dark soy sauce
- using dark + regular soy + sugar + water
- adding fish sauce
The trouble is: I get caramelization, which suggests that I'm indeed getting it hot enough, but it never gets close to what restaurant Pad See Ew tastes like. The best descriptor I have is that it often tastes woody.