“I’m Still Waiting On My Dream Restaurant”
On weekends in high school, while my friends went to football games, I washed dishes at my parents’ restaurant, Danthai. All I wanted was to get away. It’s that first-generation thing: I grew up in a Thai bubble, then when I got to school, English replaced my mother tongue. School lunches were my education on American food: cheddar Sun Chips, pizza, really overcooked green beans. That’s what I was excited about. At their restaurant my parents tempered our family recipes to fit into a predominantly white community. It wasn’t the food they loved. It was the food that sold.
I went to culinary school because I watched Gordon Ramsay on YouTube. I wanted to give my dad’s restaurant the Kitchen Nightmares treatment. But once I got to New York and started cooking French food, all I could think about were the things my parents made at home—lad na, sai ua—the things I always took for granted. So I made a 10-year plan: After culinary school I’d go back to Atlanta, work with all the best chefs (including my parents!), get to know the farmers, then open a Thai restaurant. One that challenged perceptions of what Thai food could be but never compromised.
Somehow I’ve stuck to the plan. My friend Rod Lassiter and I started Talat Market as a pop-up three years ago; by March 2020 we were days away from opening our brick-and-mortar. Then the pandemic hit.
Takeout was a big part of my parents’ business, like it is for most Thai American restaurants. Growing up I spent hours packing Styrofoam boxes full of pad thai. But working in high-end restaurants made me look down on to-go. Dining was about the plating, the presentation. You ate out to get the full experience, and that’s what I wanted for Talat. I wanted to transport people. I wanted an open kitchen so diners could watch our process—the pressing of the fresh coconut milk, the way the egg puffs up when you pour it into hot oil. I wanted Thai luk thung music playing over the speakers. I wanted tables with dinky plastic stools where guests could linger for hours like they would on a street in Chiang Mai. But now, in order to survive, restaurants must adapt, and that means serving our food to-go.
I’m trying to look on the bright side. Rod and I see this as a chance to focus on the flavors, the techniques, the stories—what you’re left with when everything else is stripped away. My yum phonlamai, a savory Thai-style fruit salad, is a throwback to my mom, whose parents made a living sell-ing pineapples in Bangkok. My red curry is an homage to my dad, who learned it from his mom. And the seasonal Georgia produce in all my dishes is a nod to my Thai American upbringing, how I was raised between two worlds.
So yeah, I’m still waiting on my dream restaurant. But in the meantime I know that the food we serve—whether it’s on a ceramic plate or in a cardboard to-go box—will never compromise.
Originally Appeared on Bon Appétit
