I had an especially light-colored order of sam noom from Pad Thai Café today. I’m not really sure what goes into the pan that affects the color, but I guess they were a little sparing with it today. I tried to look up what exactly causes the traditional shade of brown, but unfortunately most of the texts I uncovered, once translated from the original Thai, were less about the recipe and more about Noom himself. It all seemed pretty complimentary, from what I could understand.