At Laos Thai, on South 24th Street, we placed an identical order: midlevel spicy pad thai, dry, with shrimp and tofu.

The condiments at Laos were more serious: raw jalapeños floated in vinegar and chilies floated in the fish sauce.

Niz noted that this pad thai had bits of scrambled egg, an ingredient she considered important. Ekapon said traditionally, the egg is folded over the noodles and cooked into the mix. It’s an ingredient that’s only been added to pad thai in the past 50 years or so.

Jason noted the wider noodles, which were cooked more than the ones we had at Salween. We liked the sauce’s blend of sweet and sour, but the sweet overwhelmed the spicy. The dish’s shrimp had a chewy finish, and the bigger chunks of tofu weren’t crisp.

Our last stop was Bangkok Cuisine, downtown.

Here, Ekapon ordered like a regular, because he is one.

“I just told him to have his mom make it her way,” he told us after a quick conversation with the server, who is the chef’s son. “She prides herself on making the spice right and doesn’t like you to add anything.”

After a few bites, we knew we had a dish that was going to give Salween a run for its money.