“Kin Khao” means “eat rice” in Thai. If you love rice like I do, that’s a very good thing because rice appears on the menu in all variations possible. Rice dominates from the appetizers like the crispy rice cakes in the Bangkok posh salad, to rice powder in the bean dish, to rice noodles, to sweet coconut rice, and to chicken fat rice in the entrees.
Rice even makes multiple appearances in desserts: the luscious warm black rice pudding, the crispy rice, peanut, and sesame praline, and the panna cotta with puffed rice and fried shallots.
Pim Techamuanvivit is the chef and owner. On her restaurant’s website, Pim’s mission statement is to liberate her beloved Thai cuisine from the tyranny of peanut sauce. You gotta love this woman for her talent, passion, and wit. Kin Khao received its first Michelin star eighteen months after opening in 2014 and has maintained its star ever since. It has Michelin star standards in flavor, quality, service, and refinement- without the Michelin star price. You actually get spectacular, creative, and elevated dishes that will knock your socks off for what you might pay at any ordinary Thai place.
We ordered two of their signature dishes: hor mok (curry mousse in a jar with mushrooms, coconut cream, crispy rice cakes) and the nam tok beans. The earthy mousse was unlike anything I’ve ever had before. Cold, thick, creamy, and crunchy, all the elements flattered one another.
Nam tok beans arrived next. Rice powder is combined with earthy Rancho Gordo cranberry beans and tossed with lime, chili, soy sauce, shallots and herbs. The flavors are bright and clear: tang from the lime, a perfect amount of spice from the chili, freshness from the herbs, and sweetness from the shallots. It was such an irresistible dish that I had to Google how to make it on our drive home. Our waitress told us this dish was a must have, but warned that it would be spicy. She was right on both counts but the spice level was perfect for us. We didn’t even need water to extinguish the burn, unlike our experience at another Thai place whose chef lacked that restraint.
I ordered the Khao mun gai (chicken fat rice, ginger-poached chicken served with Pim’s secret sauce and a cup of chicken broth) and Grant ordered the duck noodle soup. The Muscovy duck perched above the bowl of rice noodles, bok choy, green onions, garlic oil, and five-spice broth.
The meaty drumstick skin glistened; it had been submerged in its own fat, then slow-cooked. Grant could not stop slurping.
A young gentleman two tables away came in by himself and ordered the Pad Kee Mao (spicy stir-fried drunken rice noodles tossed with ground pork, chili, garlic, onions, sweet peppers, holy basil and lime). He devoured the whole thing. While he paid his tab, he told the waitress if Kin Khao ever retired this dish, he would be utterly heartbroken. He politely requested a courtesy notice before such an awful event (a phone call would do) so he could properly mourn by eating it to his heart’s content before it left his life forever.
“I’m Thai and nobody makes this dish the way Kin Khao does,“ he told her. “I’m so in love with it.”
“How romantic,” I thought, and wished that the love of his life would remain at Kin Khao for a very long time. Maybe even long enough for him to eventually share it with a forever partner who would become the new love of his life.