Phed Mark London

PHED MARK LONDON is Mark Wiens’ restaurant pop-up on the lower ground floor of Platapian on Greek street Soho. I write with urgency: it’s open till the end of May. Not Platapian but Phed Mark. Pronounced Ped Mark. Phed เผ็ด being Thai word for spicy. 

Why visit a restaurant co-owned by Mark Wiens?

Phed Mark is open 12-4:30pm every day. Arriving on a Tuesday at around 1:30pm I expected to queue. No one was outside Platapian Thai restaurant by the Vidal Sassoon studio on Greek Street.

Mark Wiens is not just a youtuber. He’s been hand picked by The National Geographic channel to take us travelling around the world with him, through the medium of food. The restaurant is a collaborative work of Wiens and Iron Chef Thailand champion Chef Gigg. Migrationology was Mark’s first platform to share his love of food, his experiences and recommendations. He was heavily influenced by the late Anthony Bourdain, as well as Andrew Zimmer, to traverse into the medium of video.

So, this isn’t a Thai street food pop-up in London from a mukbanger. Nor so, a competitive eater or worse – a sponsored influencer “restaurant reviewer”. It’s food from an ex food writer or blogger, with enough knowledge on Thai cuisine, having used Thailand as his home base with his Thai wife, for well over a decade.

A model walked out looked out looking dazed and confused, whilst wanting to chat for some reason, as I was attempting to check I was at the right spot. I was greeted immediately and speedily taken down the stairs to the pop-up before I got a look at Platapian’s ground floor interiors.

What is Pad Gaprao?

Pad Gaprao or pad Kra Pao (Pad Krapow) is a popular Thai street food dish made with minced meat, typically pork mince stir fried with peppery Thai Holy Basil, garlic, chillies and fish sauce or nam pla which is the standard fish sauce of Thailand. Thinly slicing the beef, chicken instead of using mince is not as common, I believe. Prik Nam Pla is a condiment you can add, simply consisting of fish sauce, chillies, lime, garlic.

It became commonplace to eat Gaprao sound in street stalls throughout Thailand, with its origins in Central Thailand. Owing to its essentially one-wok preparation method (minus the egg in some cases) practicality leant it to be favourable to those wanting a quick bite to eat. Chinese immigrant stir-fry techniques were brought in to Central Thailand around the early to mid 20th Century. Pad Krapao came into being as these techniques were transmuted to the local ingredients that Thais are accustomed to.

Depth of flavour is nuanced: balanced with a sprinkle of sugar, oyster sauce. It can also be made with seafood, tofu, mushrooms. I’ve heard of a pork belly variant, which, frankly sounds divine. might make an appearance. It’s handed to you on a plate accompanied by a bed steamed white jasmine rice. A fried egg may act as dual coloured pillow atop the bed. More on this later.

Phed Mark Menu

For the purposes of my opinion, or review, of the signature dish at Phed Mark in London, we’ll call his Gaprao i.e. Pad Krapao in English. The London menu says Basil and lists the protein options. Bold Basil – as opposed to Hellfire or some such marketing gimmick. However, I will have more to say about this; my thoughts, on glaring menu details, overall. Let’s give due praise to the fresh herb in the meantime. The Phed Mark Bangkok menu says Kaprao instead of Basil. Bear this in mind.

I want Pad Krapao Moo for several reasons. Moo means Pork, not beef. Pork is King in South East Asia. The intense spice promised me of this Thai street food dish sounds like it will pair well with pork mince twofold. Pork, in and of itself, has less metallic minerality in terms of flavour, so it takes on the authentic Gaprao I want to taste. The leaner, crumblier texture of the pork mince when cooked offers a high surface area for the palate to experience the cook of Gaprao, in a more measured sense.

As I don’t want beef or chicken mince, Tofu and mushrooms will have to do: both will take on the flavours I covet to haunt me daily, or at the very least, my dreams. So much so that I bang my keyboard looking for recipes or places nearby to feed my new, unleashed Pad Krapao obsession.

I go for it. The signature; very spicy. Now my partner in crime is not into this. Not at all. Put simply, to shun hot, spicy foods made with food lover Mark Wiens’ signature chilly pepper emblem is, indeed, a common reaction. The response of a commonplace palate. Perhaps due to an intolerance. To be allergic to its aroma in the air, however, suggests this might not be best the time to acquaint them with Mark Wiens.

Is Thai Food Spicy?

Thai chillies prik ki nu are known to the Western world as birds eye chillies. They carry an intense heat. Thai food is light, yet complex. South East Asian cuisine honours the tongue’s tasting capacity for sweetness; saltiness, sourness, spice. It’s a brightly balanced blueprint, lending itself more to spice in Thai dishes such as Som Tum; Green Papaya salad. Originating from Central Thailand, Gaprao is known to be on a similar heat level of spice. Curry dishes like Jungle Curry or the classic dry curry, Gaeng Kua Kling, from Southern Thailand are not far off, I believe.

Wiens seems a nice enough chap on youtube. The antithesis in aspiring to anaesthetise our taste buds along with his, is in plain sight. Does it go against the grain of being a lover of food? Chilly is a food. Thai chillies are spicy. Marketing works for him.

A fresher flavoured green chilli spreads over you like a balmy humidity, muffled with a citrus. That’s chased swiftly by a kick of heat entering the insides of your cheeks. The red chilli, the bird’s eye red, packs a deep black pepper note. The name bird’s eye is interesting: if you feed a bird a chilli it comes to no effect but to spread the seeds. A bird doesn’t taste any of the chilli spice. We on the other hand, as humans do. In spite of the seeds that pass straight through us, the bird’s eye chilli effect does not. It’s earthy much like gnawing around on the seed of some fruit. Subsequently, capsicum comes to play.

What do Thai chillies taste like in Pad Krapao?

It tickles, as lightly as the flutter of an eyelash, at first, numbing the gums. When it builds you strap on tight, aware of each eyelash bat. Saliva gushes to the front of the mouth till the lips, feel like flickering flames. It’s pleasant. Precision-wise, as pleasantly painful as direct, sustained contact with that sore spot underneath your left shoulder blade.

So with salivary glands and sinuses awakened, I tuck in, as my chilli averse lunch companion watches with equal parts horror and fascination. We don’t speak a word.

Before the food arrived I was given the wrong plate with one egg, instead of the 2 eggs I asked for. The yolk looks nothing like the advertised sunset egg yolk. This colour being coveted as a Clarence Court variety or leaves tourists in awe when they go to Japan. For instance. Or, as I’m looking forward to, the signature Mark Wiens’ duck egg recipe swap – for which his version of this dish is famous online. It being yellow doesn’t make it less captivating to me. A chicken egg it clearly is. It tastes exactly like one too. However, my server – a new one, who I don’t see before or after this encounter – tells me it is a duck egg when I ask them.

The cubed firm tofu and button mushrooms red chillies are warm like toasted cracked black pepper toasted and nutty with some cut up birds eye and whole 3 chillies in the mix. As I travel on this eating journey I’m aware of a couple of things. Wien’s rendition is created by chef and co-founder of Phed Mark’s London pop-up; acclaimed Thai celebrity chef Chef Gigg aka Kamol Chobdee-Ngam. The plastic dish isn’t warm. My Gaprao elicits not a whisper of steam. The timing of the cooking feels off. The egg fry is barely crisp on the outer edges, leaving that rubbery feeling that’s hard to dissect with the metallic cutlery provided sans chopsticks. The photos online look one way. The immediate taste experience that lasts with the paying customer, another. It is the one that matters most.

I continue to plough through. To the finish line! Which is not altogether a task for me: the pepper takes a while to announce itself, on the palate. It’s a plastic plate but a plate nonetheless that leaves you curious whether they’ll be twists and turns here and there. I try the one condiment in a pot on the table; the Prik Nam Pla. Right up my alley, I think – but no. We’ve made a U-turn. Like pouring sea water onto the plate when you expect bittern lime sourness, fermented fish, fresh cut chillies with a hint of garlic. I’ve no idea what went wrong here: twas either a flavour enhancer nor reducer but an enulmet with my appetite.

The basil could be crispier. Don’t you just hate the stringy texture of an item of food you’ve committed to swallowing? I couldn’t eat artichokes for years because of this. Green beans too. Those were bark-like whereas this gorgeous herb shouldn’t do that coming straight off a hellfire street food style wok.

I digress: my point is that Holy Basil is earthy. it is the true chosen fresh herb in pad gaprao where red bird’s eye chilli accompanies it’s clove bitter undertones. Thai basil is sweeter with a flavour profile that includes notes of aniseed as opposed to the warmer clove in Holy Basil. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was as the London menu says – basil.

When a fresh herb is used in cooking it speaks gently to your senses. Soft spoken tones that are measured so you take everything in as cultured nuances invite you to do so. Like back in times before influence shouted at you to provoke response through sensory prodding video media. Pronounced yet delicate: that is the tone. Dried herbs are like spices, louder; a sprinkle goes a long way. They bloom in hot oil.

Review of Gaprao at Phed Mark London

I polished off most of my plate bar a bit of rice. A nibble of the spring roll was had. It’s almost enough to say there was any left for me to try as the appetisers were tiny. We, the spring roll fiends, agreed that they were dire. Sickly sweet sauce on top of thin rolls coating, perhaps one grating of carrot. I am told the chicken satay sticks were “OK”. Let’s move on!

I’m not bothered about having gaprao with chicken or duck egg. I am bothered by two things, however, the first being cold, rubbery eggs. The second is that I’ve seen several videos where Wiens is present in the kitchen in Thailand, gleaming with pride at his Phed Mark cooking method of the eggs which we pay extra for as a customer, per egg. I’ve got a link below about this.

Mark Wiens’ Duck Egg Gaprao at Phed Mark

The whites are separated from the yolks in Bangkok, Thailand. If you want to, you can see this here in the kitchen with Wiens and David Hoffman from the 11:22 mark. My first plate arrived with one egg before I received the extra egg I paid for to. The whites are deep fried to create a luscious crisp. Just before serving the yolks are gently applied atop the whites, in the wok, before being directly scooped up and plated. I’m guessing this is not a separate plating station in London as it appears in Bangkok, Thailand – for obvious reasons. The duck egg yolk is richer and gamier in flavour so it acts as a respite from the enormous amount of fresh, cooked and whole birds eye chillies they add to the number 5 spicy in Wien’s restaurant in Bangkok.

A bit of chewy basil is fine. I will live another day to eats lots of basil, of all varieties. Better not to lie and keep it as just “Basil” on the menu too, so props for that. May be deep frying some basil and piling it on top works well with regular or Holy basil. Something to try to recreate if you’re like me; keen to try new things you’ve eaten at restaurants? It’s a street food so it will certainly be a challenge to the home cook. Mise en Place or expect to fail with Pad gaprao is the lesson I take here.

I’d go for Thai Tiger beer with spicy foods rather than the Thai Leo beer I tried. The bitterness in the Tiger goes down a treat with this complex dish. I asked the server for a suggestion but they didn’t drink beer. Leo beer was a bit too malty for me, personally.

My overall ratings based on my my opinion of the Greek Street Soho London pop-up of Phed Mark when I visited in May 2026:

Food – 5.7/10

Value for money 6/10

Vibes and service – 5/10