Thai Food and Cooking

Food Truck Bite of the Week: Pad Thai at Phat Thai

Our weekly bite explores the city's food trucks, one at a time, highlighting our favorite mobile dishes and snacks. The Truck: Phat Thai The Cuisine: Thai Cuisine Specialty Items: Pad Thai Worth the Wait in Line? Definitely A big serving of stir-fried noodles is classic street fare, but it's somet ... More >>

Top Chef Masters: Cosentino Watch, Episode 6

Welcome to Cosentino Watch, where we recap the moves of San Francisco chef Chris Cosentino as he competes in Top Chef Masters. Warning: Spoilers ahead. Episode 6 is called "Thai One On," but thankfully it's not a full hour of puns. It's the first time all season we get to see host Curtis Stone turn ... More >>

Class Alert! Master The Art of Gluten-Free Baking, Thai Cooking, and Cheesemaking

The Joy of Gluten-Free, Sugar-Free Baking Where: Draeger's, 222 E. Fourth Ave., San Mateo; (650) 685-3700. When: Thurs., Aug. 16, 6:30 p.m. Cost: $65 The rundown: Baker, author, and instructor Peter Reinhart leads a demonstration class featuring recipes such as no-carb hush puppies, biscotti with ... More >>

Catfish Salad Smackdown: Try This Tasty Thai Specialty

Catfish Salad Showdown: This Ain't Your Mama's Catfish

When it comes to Thai food in San Francisco, I am first and foremost Team Tenderloin. The crunch of the rice powder, the lime infused spice of a dipping sauce or the chewiness of a pad see ew noodle seem somehow difficult to replicate outside of this not especially scenic neighborhood. Even Lers Ros ... More >>

Zen Yai Thai: Off-Menu Boat Noodles Are Bloody Good

Boat Noodles and the Secret Menu at Zen Yai

The menu at Zen Yai Thai Restaurant has a long menu of noodles and curries with careful English translations, but no one is ordering off it. Recently, we walked in for a late lunch, leaving the streets of Little Saigon and entering a room filled with Thai chatter and people slurping from l ... More >>

Lers Ros Hayes Valley: Stylish Thai Taste Travels Uptown

The New Lers Ros: Twice as Stylish, Just as Spicy

Kimberly SandieLers Ros's quail with fried garlic and black pepper: Goes with ganache.​ Despite our proximity to Los Angeles, whose Thai restaurants are the best in the Americas, San Francisco's history with Thai restaurants is a spotty one. Little restaurants spring up, impress the locals, then g ... More >>

Five Best Thai Restaurants in San Francisco

Kimberly SandieChabaa's gaeng som, or sour orange curry. ​Thai restaurants began popping up all over San Francisco in the 1980s, and within a decade, Thai food had become a staple for first dates and Thursday-night takeouts. San Franciscan children eat almost as much pad Thai as they do organic ba ... More >>

Fresh Eats: Lers Ros: Tom Silargorn Talks on Authentic Thai

Eat Here: Thai IDEA Vegetarian Dishes Superior Thai Tastiness

Thai IDEA Vegetarian is a brand-new restaurant on Polk. It's adorably tiny, and feels really new and clean. Which it is. Which is nice, considering you'll most likely have to step over a paramedic resuscitating someone's grandma or Nick Nolte's twin eating a pigeon to get inside. We kid -- Tenderloi ... More >>

Q&A With Tom Silargorn, Part 3: Recipe for Lers Ros's Tom Yum Koong

As part of SFoodie's interview with Tom Silargorn, chef-owner of Lers Ros -- part 1 and part 2 were published earlier this week -- we asked Silargorn for his recipe for tom yum koong. The soup gets ordered daily at Lers Ros, no matter what the weather or the time of day, he says. It's worth tackling ... More >>

Q&A With Lers Ros's Chef, Tom Silargorn, Talking About Real Thai Food

Alanna HaleLers Ros chef-owner Tom Silargorn.​Born in Chon Buri, a coastal province about 45 minutes southeast of Bangkok, chef Tom Silargorn learned to cook by his mother's side. Three years ago, he opened Lers Ros in the Tenderloin and quickly earned a devout following of locals, chefs and food ... More >>

Q&A With Lers Ros's Tom Silargorn, Part 2: About That New Restaurant...

Tom Silargorn, owner of the three-year-old Lers Ros, generally regarded as one of San Francisco's best Thai restaurants, initially came to San Francisco to pursue an education in art. But the lack of what he deems "real Thai food" in the city inspired him to show San Francisco what it was missing. I ... More >>

Screw Authenticity: Asian Food in America

Lummmy/FlickrShould Americans even be calling pad thai "Thai" at this point?​This week, Gilt Taste is running a fantastic series about Asian food in America -- or rather, Asian American food. The series led with an article by former SFoodie editor (and current East Bay Express critic) John Birdsal ... More >>

Dish Preview: Chabaa Thai's Massaman Curry and Mango Prawn Salad

Dish When: Sunday, Oct. 2, 1-4 p.m. Where: San Francisco Design Center Cost: $40 regular, $75 VIP Massaman curry​Chabaa Thai is a heavyweight, even among the throngs of Thai restaurants that pepper the Sunset. Its Thai-language menu -- first created for insiders -- is so legit that we had to ... More >>

Fresh Eats: Our weekly roundup of SFoodie news

Som Tum and Other Isan Salads at Zaab Thai

Jonathan KauffmanZaab's papaya salad with peanuts and salted crab, $7.95.​Wednesday, December 8, 2010Slowly, slowly, Isan food from northeastern Thailand is filtering into San Francisco. You can find Isan dishes on the menus of Thai House Express and Lers Ros, and the semisecret Thai-language menu ... More >>

Charles Phan Hopes the Mission Likes Him Better Now, Bai Thong Opens

​ ​The past 24 hours in gossip, innuendo, and cold hard facts about the San Francisco restaurant scene.Jay B. at Grub Street talks to Charles Phan about his plans for the original Slanted Door location at 584 Valencia St. They're still quite vague, but Grub Street says the concept is more likely ... More >>

Zaab Northeastern Thai Brings 'Tasty' to Clement

Luis Chong​There's a new Thai place on Clement Street. Two-week-old Zaab replaced the Golden Deer, a Vietnamese restaurant that was often empty, and whose only virtue seemed to be that it stayed open until 2 a.m. on weekends. Zaab means "tasty" in the northeastern Thai dialect (it's unrela ... More >>

Whole Foods Unveils S.F. Street-Food Line: Sauces from Magic Curry Kart

Tamara PalmerJars of red Magic Curry Paste on Whole Foods' shelves.​Fifteen months after mobile vendor Magic Curry Kart took to the streets, proprietor Brian Kimball has landed Magic Curry branded products in all four San Francisco Whole Foods locations. In June, Whole Foods' Northern Califo ... More >>

We translate Chabaa Thai's ethnic Isaan food

Sarah Kirnon: Following in Her Grandmother's Footsteps

Sarah Kirnon.​Sarah Kirnon, chef of Oakland's Hibiscus ― the subject of today's review ― was born in Britain and raised in Barbados. She moved to San Francisco 10 years from London (for love, naturally); after running the kitchens at Emmy's Spaghetti Shack and the Front Porch, she opened Hibi ... More >>

Quail That Take Flight: Your SFoodie Lunch Planner

J. BirdsallPad ped nok (stir-fried quail) at Lers Ros Thai.​Fri., March 12, 2010 If tiny birds have to die, it's better they should end up in the Tenderloin, where the Thai cooks at Lers Ros can turn them into pad ped nok (menu item no. 104). The quails' little joints yield plump flesh on mos ... More >>

Seven Creative Uses for Leftover Pumpkins

Halloween has come and gone, leaving us with fading memories and old jack-o'-lanterns. You can't do much with memories, but the possibilities for recycling pumpkin are nearly endless. Here are some of our favorites.​7. Pumpkin Moonshine Why not drown your sorrows in pumpkin-flavored alcohol? Pumpk ... More >>

Score one for SOMA: Suriya Thai Migrates from the Mission

Photo by Pengrin, via YelpSuriya Thai steak.Score one for SOMA, and zero for the Mission. Before being evicted earlier this year after nearly two decades of service, Suriya Thai was a Mission standby for authentic Thai food in a calm setting. Knowing Pi Bar (a pizza joint) is on the way in the old V ... More >>

Meals Under $8: Pan-Fried Noodles at Thai Noodle Jump

Among the more than 50 traditional offerings at Thai Noodle Jump (560 Balboa at 6th Ave.) in the Richmond District are six different kinds of pan-fried noodles, all priced under $8. Pictured here is the moo dang ($7.50) of vermicelli noodles with barbecued pork, carrots, broccoli, bok choy, green ... More >>

Thai Score

Fabulous and unusual Thai food is available until the wee hours in the Tenderloin.

I'll Have What She's Having

Eating at Marnee Thai can be an education in making difficult choices.

Nonya Business

The blending of hits and misses at S.F.'s oldest Malaysian restaurant

Running Ahmohk

S.F.'s only Cambodian spot is still going strong in its 20th year

The Art of Eating

Fabulous, inexpensive Thai food whose only flaw is its speedy arrival (and consumption)

Eating at the Flea

There are bargains in comestibles as well as collectibles to be had at these Sunday markets

Monkey Business

Full relaxation is achieved with delicious Thai food in an unusually pleasant and stylish setting

A Perfect 10

Osha Thai Noodle Cafe

Best Tom Yum

Yamo Thai Kitchen

International Death Match

Malee Thai & Vietnamese

The Thai That Binds

Yamo Thai Kitchen

Mixed Up

Ninna

The Thais That Bind

Your Place

Best Thai Plus

Basil Thai Restaurant and Bar

And to All a Good Night

Neecha Thai Cuisine

The Thai of Your Life

Thai Breaker

Monkey Food

Thai Me Up!

Carnaval Cruise

Crossroads

Irrawaddy's Burmese cuisine reflects Chinese and Indian influences, as well as its own soul