Kanok Thai has little in common with predecessor Typhoon, but fills spot well
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The menu at Kanok Thai restaurant includes the papaya salad with green papayas, carrots, grape tomatoes and shrimp.
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Kanok Thai restaurant opened in Shadyside in May, less than a month after the previous tenant, the upscale Thai fusion restaurant Typhoon, had vacated the space.
Along with the lease, Kanok inherited the dining room, almost untouched since its previous incarnation. The room was adorned with the same Buddha statues and graceful arrangements of reeds. The opulent flower arrangements were gone, but food arrives on the same white porcelain, set on the same woven placemats, to be eaten with the same bamboo-inspired golden silverware. (While gilded chopsticks are available upon request, Thai people don't eat with chopsticks, so the rest of us don't need to either.)
The inherited atmosphere created odd echoes of dinners past, but these were best ignored. Kanok is very different from Typhoon, and comparisons don't do either restaurant much good.
- Hours: Monday-Thursday, lunch, 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m., dinner, 4:30-10 p.m.; Saturday, noon-11 p.m.; Sunday, noon-10 p.m.
- Basics: A neighborhood Thai restaurant with aspirations.
- Recommended dishes: : Steamed dumplings, crispy calamari, larb kai, yum woon sen salad, soft shell crab salad, massaman curry, kung op woon sen, pad cha tilapia, sticky rice with steamed pandan leaf custard.
- Prices: Appetizers, $4-$12; soup, $5-$6; salads, $7-$12; curry, $12-$17; Thai noodle bowls, $11-$15; wok dishes, $11-$17; authentic dishes, $12-$24; desserts, $5-$8.
- Summary: Wheelchair accessible; credit cards accepted; reservations available; BYOB, corkage $3 per bottle.
- Noise level: Low to medium loud.
Kanok is more casual, despite the gilded setting. It's also more straightforwardly Thai. Tommy Kanavivatchai, the chef and co-owner, hopes to broaden diners' experience of Thai food by offering a wider range of specialty dishes than the typical American Thai restaurant. These dishes include pad cha tilapia, wedges of tilapia filets coated in a thin batter and fried until crisp, then stir fried with greens, red and green bell pepper, clusters of young peppercorns like tiny grapes, and strips of wild ginger, tender enough to be eaten whole ($15). The peppercorns infused the thin garlic sauce with a dry heat and citrus and floral notes.
First Published August 4, 2011 12:00 am
