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When Anajak Thai opened in 1981, most people walking into the Los Angeles restaurant were unfamiliar with Thai food. They thought it was spicy Chinese food, said Justin Pichetrunci, the restaurant's current head chef and owner.
Sherman Oaks Restaurant was one of the first Thai restaurants in Los Angeles, started by Pichetrunshi's father, Rick Pichetrunshi, Pichetrunshi said. The restaurant's original multi-page menu from the 1980s features about 60 dishes, including pad thai, pad seeu, and panang curry, introducing American diners to the flavors of Thailand while maintaining a friendly atmosphere. did.
Forty years later, Anajak, and Thai cuisine in the United States, have come a long way.
“Our diaspora cuisine has become part of the American takeout rotation,” Pichetrunsi said.
Thailand is now a nation most popular dishesand 10,000+ restaurants Even though the Thais are making up, in the United States 0.1% of the country's total population. Still, Thai food has struggled to shake off its reputation as cheap takeout food. Mr. Pichetrunsi has been trying to change that since 2019, when he left his job as Disney's art director to take over Mr. Anajak full-time.In recent years, he has overhauled his menu and made Anajac Gourmet hotspot.
It took Anajak decades to evolve from a hidden gem to a gourmet favorite. In a sense, this is also the story of Thai food in the United States.
Mark Padunpat, associate professor of Asian American studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, says to understand how Thai restaurants became so popular in the United States, go back to the Cold War-era U.S. intervention in Southeast Asia. Said it was necessary. Author of Flavors of Empire: Food and the Making of Thai America.
The United States established a strategic relationship with Thailand in the 1960s to prevent the spread of communism in the region.Ann Expanding the American footprint in the country This meant ordinary Americans could travel to Thailand and experience its cuisine, which Padunpat said ultimately sparked his interest in Thai food back home. In one example detailed in his book, a white woman named Marie Wilson accompanied her husband to teach English in Thailand, Published cookbook “Siamese Cuisine” When she comes back.
“Food was the first opportunity for many Americans to understand Thai people,” Padunpat said. “So when[Thais]come to the United States, they have to explore their identity when it comes to food.”
Thai started immigrate to the usa From the late 60's to the 70's. Padunpat said many of them were on student visas and had limited employment options, ending up finding work in restaurant kitchens or other food businesses.
Provided by: Justin Pichetrunsi
Rick Pichetrunsi opened Anajak Thai in Los Angeles in 1981 and ran the restaurant until his son Justin took over in 2019.
Pichetrunsi's father was one such immigrant. Born in Thailand to a Cantonese family, Rick Pichetrunshi came to the United States at age 18 and worked at various restaurants in Los Angeles for more than 10 years before deciding to open his own restaurant, Pichetrunshi said. Anajak He Thai, like other Thai restaurants at the time, mainly served Central Thai stir-fries and curries, with Chinese dishes such as wonton soup to attract less adventurous customers. Ta.
Despite the seemingly standard fare, running a Thai restaurant in those days required a certain amount of creativity and ingenuity. Many of Thailand's key ingredients are not readily available in the United States, and chefs have had to create substitutes that change the original taste of certain dishes.How to make Tohoku Thai dip sauce Nam JimFor example, Pichetrunsi said her father used jalapeños instead of Thai chili peppers and white sugar instead of palm sugar.
“A lot of those flavors were somewhat assimilated flavors,” Pichetrunci said. “They were trying to find a knock-off of this or that to create that flavor for themselves.”
Over the next few decades, Anajak Thai became a homely neighborhood favorite with a loyal customer base. Other Thai immigrants opened similar restaurants across the country, solidifying Thai food's foothold in the United States.
Thai food is so popular among Americans that the Thai government has taken notice. Padunpat said he launched a program in the early 2000s to train Thai chefs and open Thai restaurants overseas with the aim of promoting tourism to Thailand. As part of that campaign, the government also sought to standardize Thai restaurants and their menus in the hopes of making dishes like pad thai synonymous with Thai culture, in the same way that a Big Mac is to McDonald's. did.
While the Thai government was trying to standardize restaurant cuisine, some Thai restaurateurs were beginning to experiment with dishes outside of what most Americans associate with Thai food.For example, it was opened in 1999 by now-famous chef Saipin Chutima and her husband Bill. Siamese lotus In Las Vegas, she introduced diners to recipes from northern Thailand that have been passed down in her family for generations.
Isabella Vosmykova/Bravo/NBCU/Getty Images
Saipin Chutima and her husband Bill opened Lotus of Siam in Las Vegas in 1999 to introduce customers to the cuisine of northern Thailand.
Another effort to diversify Thai cuisine in the United States comes from Thai Cuisine founder and chef Andy Ricker. Restaurant group “Pok Pok” currently closed. Ricker, a white American who had traveled to and lived in Thailand off and on for decades, moved to Portland, Oregon in 2005 because he couldn't find the food he had eaten in Chiang Mai and Bangkok in U.S. restaurants. He told CNN that he opened Poku Poku. His venture became famous for offering local staples such as: Kaiyan and Khao Soiwhich expanded to stores in other cities before Ricker closed its doors in 2020.
Padunpat, who considers the chef a friend, credits Ricker with promoting local Thai cuisine and Thai street food in the United States and opening a market for a new generation of Thai-American chefs. But he points out that Thai immigrants weren't necessarily unimaginative, but rather had to consider how serving a cuisine unfamiliar to most Americans would affect their business. .
“I think this says something about race and food in America, that it took someone like Andy Ricker to pry that door open,” Padunpat said.
Leah Nash/Washington Post/Getty Images
Moo Pha Kam Wan, a Thai dish made with boar collars, was one of the dishes served at Pok Pok in Portland, Oregon, until it closed in 2020.
However, there were many Thai chefs who went beyond that limit. Hong Tai Mee, which originated in Chiang Mai, opened in 2011. Ngam Located in New York's East Village (later renamed Tai Mee Table), she characterized it as “modern Thai comfort food.” Rather than serving her customers the same Thai food she enjoyed as a child, she adapted certain dishes to Western palates while staying true to classic Thai flavor combinations. .
“If we put sai ua (a northern Thai sausage) on the menu, it might be too soon, too soon,” said Taimy, who works on the Thai food podcast Sabai Talk. “But I thai hamburger, it was a hit. ”
Although the Thai restaurant scene began to change in the mid-to-late 2000s, some chefs still felt the need to tread carefully.
Leela Punyarathabandhu, a food writer and cookbook author, recalls that at the time, Thai restaurants in Chicago had secret menus that Thai patrons and adventurous Americans could order. There is. These secret menus included bolder, lesser-known dishes that made the people working behind the restaurant want to eat more. Over time, as Americans became more knowledgeable about other cuisines, they began to pay more attention to secret menu offerings, emboldening Thai chefs to offer the types of dishes they wanted.
“Twenty-odd years later, the secret menu is now the regular menu,” says Punyarathabandhu, author of “Bangkok: Recipes and Stories from the Heart of Thailand'' and newsletter. letter.
Today, the Thai restaurant scene in the United States is perhaps the most exciting ever.
A growing number of restaurants are serving specific Thai regional dishes, such as the spicy, pungent flavors of Isan in the northeast, or the Malaysian and Indonesian-influenced curries of the south. And Thai-American chefs like Pichetrunshi continue to challenge stereotypes and misconceptions about what Thai food is. The menu one evening in July included dishes like southern Thai fried chicken and ho mok (steamed fish with curry custard).
“We've gone beyond the common staples of our cuisine, like pad thai and pad seew,” Pichetrunsi said. “People are really diving much deeper.”
Anajak under Pichetrungsi offers a rotating seasonal dinner menu, plus Thai tacos on Tuesdays and monthly Thai omakase, a change that has received critical acclaim.of Los Angeles Times Named the 2022 Anajak Restaurant of the Year, Pichetrunci recently announced the James Beard Award Awarded to California's best chef.
Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images
Since Justin Pichetrungsi took over Anajak Thai, it has become one of Los Angeles' most popular food spots.
nevertheless, Coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic Pichetrunsi feels he has to strike a delicate balance as the restaurant industry is hit hard. He wants to show diners how innovative Thai food can be, but he's hesitant to take familiar dishes like pad thai off the menu completely. “Pad Thai pays for the party,” he added.
While diners may not be ready to give up pad Thai, Pichetrunsi hopes restaurants like Anajak can help them reacquaint themselves with Thai food and maybe try something different.
“I hope people realize that Thai food is just as worthy, eventful and worthy of a night out as any other cuisine,” Pichetrunsi said. “You can get dressed up, listen to lots of live music, eat really simple, rustic food and buy a bottle of champagne that's very appealing.”