When he was expanding up in Udon Thani, Sirapob Chaiprathum — who goes by Q — would wake up early with his mom to cook dinner foodstuff for the markets. A long time later, as Chaiprathum traveled about the United States, he observed that most Thai restaurants in the United States experienced pretty handful of Isan dishes on menus — at best, he may well spot a variation of larb, or papaya salad, also recognized as som tum.
In Portland, there has been some Isan illustration in the regional culinary scene — probably additional than the rest of the region — but our choices are normally constrained to a several salads and grilled meat dishes. Pok Pok marketed a edition of kai yang, and Paadee has often had a handful of larb and som tum options, as very well as the fermented-pork-and-sticky-rice sausage sai krok Isan. But, even with Portland’s standing for its regional Thai scene, Chaiprathum was not fairly glad he desired to do more, provide a effectively-rounded portrait of the meals he grew up consuming. So, right after many years of opening Thai dining establishments and carts with his household all around the nation, he opened his passion challenge: an Isan cafe named for a single of the region’s most well-known dishes.
Som Tum Thai Kitchen area, situated on the Portland State College campus, separates its menu into various groups of dishes typically witnessed in Isan: grilled meats, spicy salads, and soups, as effectively as a entire category devoted to som tum. Some uninitiated diners may perhaps see som tum as a solitary dish — thinly shaved inexperienced papaya tossed in fish sauce, lime juice, and palm sugar, maybe with some dried shrimp. However, in Isan, there are a variety of diverse types of som tum available: types designed with salty discipline crabs, types tossed in fermented fish dressing, vegetarian papaya salad, papaya salad designed with sweet corn. Chaiprathum is partial to the tum lao, manufactured with the Laotian fermented fish sauce regarded as padaek. “It’s genuinely sturdy taste, but it’s truly signature from the Som Tom Thai Kitchen area,” he states.
The restaurant, likewise, features a amount of unique versions of larb — variations created with pork, duck, beef, and mushrooms — as properly as frequently spotted dishes like the glass noodle salad yum woo sen. From there, even so, the salad offerings include things like a range of dishes really hard to find in other Portland Thai eating places: tub waan, medium-uncommon pork livers tossed with shallots and herbs soop nor mai, bamboo shoots tossed in a fermented fish dressing with dried peppers and roasted rice yum moo yaw, a Vietnamese sausage salad with chile-lime dressing. Substantially of Isan’s culinary affect will come from its neighbors, namely Laos as these types of, Som Tum also retains a variation of nam khao on the menu, also acknowledged as crispy rice salad.
The soup menu at Som Tum is potentially the most effectively-stocked with Portland rarities, from tom sap kradook on made with pork cartilage and galangal to gaeng om gai, a comforting, organic vegetable soup with roasted rice and pumpkin. A significantly enjoyment menu item is the tom saep neua, a Thai soup stuffed with numerous cuts of beef, with a tangy, tom-yum-esque foundation.
For all those new to the delicacies, nevertheless, Chaiprathum thinks the Pa Khao Noi, named for the temple, is a excellent commencing issue: It is a tour via a number of the restaurant’s dishes, including larb moo, tom sap kradook on, fried pork ribs, and crispy rice salad. It is a single of a handful of sampler plates named for Thai temples — the Pa Khao Yai is a related mixture, with the addition of kor moo yang (grilled pork neck).
The 40-seat cafe is now open for onsite eating and takeout, and soon Chaiprathum hopes to get started serving beverages at the restaurant’s bar. Som Tum is found at 1924 SW Broadway.
• Som Tum Thai Kitchen area [Official]
