Drawing from what the Thais call aahaan kap klaem, or food made for eating with whiskey, Pok Pok’s Andy Ricker re-creates Asian pub snacks without compromising for Western palates: stewed pork, frog legs, and a bamboo-shoot salad prized by Thai-street-food connoisseurs but gym-shoe pungent to the novice, all designed to be washed down with homemade drinking vinegars, savory cocktails, and ice-cold bia wun, or “jelly beer.” Begin your education with kai saam yang, a simple mélange of toasted peanuts, minced shallots, lemongrass, and salt flecks; miang kham, mats of strong, herbal-flavored betel nut leaves meant to be rolled around a tasty mix-up of dinky dried shrimp, peanuts, fiery peppers, fresh ginger, coconut, shallot, and lime rind; and neua sawan, deep-fried beef shreds served with lime leaves. The pad Thai, served only after 10 p.m., is Portland’s best. And for those tired of waiting in line for Pok Pok’s signature fish-sauce wings across the street, psst, just get ’em here.
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