Sourasay Senesombath and Anima Nikonthet went to Los Angeles a week ago with a goal.
On Sunday, Senesombath and Nikonthet, who run Asian Cafe in Winslow and Asian Noodle Bowl in Augusta, stood with the Los Angeles sun beating down on them, celebrating Thai New Year. They were accompanied by Chintana Louangvongsa, who works at Asian Cafe, Tiffany Green, a friend, and a big group of their employees.
The celebration took place along Hollywood Boulevard, and for many of the restaurants’ employees, the trip was a rare chance to travel outside Maine. They mingled with other restaurateurs, went to clothing and beverage stalls, and spied Thai celebrities.
But they were there for business as well as fun. They spent Sunday working with 37 other restaurants toward the same goal — to set a record of making and serving 1,200 orders of pad thai in just 60 minutes.
Senesombath, Louangvongsa and Green were working under high-pressure conditions. The team had enough ingredients to make 48 orders of pad thai exactly, and they had a system. Senesombath would take and distribute orders, Louangvongsa would cook, and Green would box food up.
They had met with the event’s organizers to be sure they understood the rules, and had perfectly proportioned their ingredients in advance.
As the record-setting attempt got underway, things quickly got stressful. The restaurant next to the Maine-based team had a cookware malfunction, and some of its shrimp was thrown out — a quality control test showed it had gotten too hot in the sun.
Senesombath shared some of his shrimp with his neighbor, and continued taking and processing orders.
His biggest frustration was that in all of the chaos and with so much noise, he couldn’t chat with his customers while they waited for their orders. He said that in Maine, this chattiness is what Asian Cafe is known for.
Louangvongsa was making five to six orders at a time, careful not to undercook chicken or overcook shrimp.
After 50 minutes, the team from Maine was done — they’d made 48 orders of pad thai.
Senesombath walked around and saw a few other restaurants still working. He didn’t know if they’d all make it to the finish line.
But once the Guinness World Record judges verified their results, the event organizers announced the restaurants had made 1,338 orders of pad thai in an hour. The participants are Guinness World Record holders.
Senesombath said he and his team loved being able to celebrate the new year at such a fun, lively event. They’re not used to being around so much of their own culture.
They spent the rest of the day chatting with vendors and sampling many other pad thai recipes.
“Everybody put their own twist to it,” Senesombath said. “Everybody has their own recipe.”
On Monday after the festival and a long day of sightseeing, the Maine team invited festival organizers to their vacation rental to cook for them. They didn’t make pad thai — they were sick of the dish by that point.
Now, Senesombath is excited to tell all his customers about his big weekend. He said people were stopping him in Hannaford to ask about the record on his first day back.
Even on his journey home, three customers from Maine recognized Senesombath and congratulated him.
He enjoyed his experience, but he said he was glad to be able to have real conversations with his customers in the community he and Nikonthet have built in Maine.
This story was originally published by the Maine Trust for Local News. Abigail Pritchard can be reached at [email protected].
