Tag Archives: Thai restaurants

Hungry Thaiger is a Thai Ghost Kitchen Winner

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Hungry Thaiger is a fabulous family-run Thai ghost kitchen in southwest Calgary

I’m a sucker for ghost kitchens, pop-up restaurants, micro bakeries and pretty much any home-based food joints. Why? It’s largely because I’ve dispensed with the middleperson and am directly dealing, and chatting, with the owner, who is often the cook. In a lot of cases, I’m picking up the meal at the proprietor’s home or little place of business.

So when I hear about Hungry Thaiger, I hustle down to the Oakridge Community Centre in Calgary’s southwest. That’s where they run a second-floor ghost kitchen, preparing delicious Thai meals for pickup and delivery. It’s a wife-and-husband operation, with Bangkok-raised Somp tending a line of smoking-hot woks and Saskatoon-born Travis assembling everything else.

From this compact commercial kitchen, they produce a plethora of Thai curries, stir-fries and noodle dishes, some 25 in all. These range from the familiar green curries and tom yum soups to the lesser-known bird’s nest noodles.

Directions to Hungry Thaiger’s upstairs kitchen in the Oakridge Community Centre

For a first visit, I stick to the conventional pad Thai. Technically, I’m here for takeout, but I never make it past my parked car, wolfing down the steaming meal with a plastic fork. It’s fabulous stuff, a bargain $17 for the quantity and quality.

Fabulous pad Thai

Hungry Thaiger has been operating in this leafy neighbourhood for about a year, with area residents Somp and Travis hoping it’s a steppingstone to a conventional restaurant nearby. Me, I kinda hope they don’t give up the ghost.

Travis and mother assembling my steaming meal

Hungry Thaiger
9504 Oakfield Drive SW, Calgary (upstairs Oakridge Community Centre)
Wednesday to Friday and Sunday 4-8 pm
587-229-8386

There’s More to Thai Food Than Pad Thai

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I’m braced for a substantial lineup at *Pok Pok, Andy Ricker’s legendary, James Beard Foundation-award-winning Portland restaurant. But when I arrive on a sultry mid-afternoon, there are lots of empty tables, and I’m whisked straight into the air-conditioned bar. There’s not a lot of character here. The emphasis is squarely on the amazing food.

Pok Pok Thai restaurant in Portland, Oregon. T...

Pok Pok Thai restaurant in Portland, Oregon. The Oregonian restaurant of the year 2007. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Pok Pok features innovative, northern and northeastern Thailand dishes such as smoky charcoal grilled eggplant salad, sweet pork belly curry and lemongrass-stuffed game hen, with an average price of around $14. But I take a more conventional route with the signature Vietnamese-style hot wings, marinated in fish sauce and sugar, deep fried and tossed with garlic, more fish sauce and my choice of spicy chile flakes. To say they’re the best chicken wings I’ve ever had would do them an injustice. They’re enormous (who knew chickens had such big wings?)—sweet and spicy, meaty and messy. I go through nearly a napkin for each of the six wings, then mop up with a couple of wet naps. A spoon and a fork are recommended for this style of Thai food, but in this case I’m all hands.

Fantastic, monster chicken wings with an Asian twist at Pok Pok

Fantastic, monster chicken wings with an Asian twist at Pok Pok

On a side note, a look at Pok Pok’s menu opens up an unfamiliar, fantastic world of Thai cuisine. You won’t find pad thai, green curry or tom kha soup here. That’s because those dishes are all part of the southern Thai offerings that dominate Thai menus pandering to the North American masses. Pok Pok and its offshoots are Andy Ricker’s attempts to bring authentic northern and northeastern Thai cuisine to U.S. palates.

Here’s hoping it becomes a more widespread trend. Because there is more to Thai than pad thai.

Pok Pok
3226 SE Division Street, Portland, Oregon
Daily 11:30 am-10 pm
Pok Pok on Urbanspoon