A Bangkok-raised chef is now serving vibrant Thai street food such as pan-fried noodles, grilled Isan sausage, Wagyu short rib with herbs and sticky rice, and flame-kissed pork jowl in Old Pasadena. To drink, there\u2019s local ube beer and natural wine.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love to eat street food so much,\u201d said Thaim chef-owner Ruethai Boonlieng. \u201cI go back to Thailand all the time, and I always ask my friends, \u201cHey, don\u2019t take me to the mall \u2014 take me to street food. It\u2019s a true food for my soul, and people make the street food with care.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boonlieng\u2019s Thaim is a portmanteau of \u201cThai\u201d and \u201cI am.\u201d While some of her recipes are traditional \u2014 such as her mom\u2019s preparation of Sukhothai pad Thai \u2014 others are modern spins, like brightening her sweet-spicy mango salad with fresh dill or turning her childhood favorite, egg tofu, into a deep-fried egg custard.<\/p>\n
The chef grew up in Bangkok and learned to cook by watching her mother prepare home meals, then took pastry courses in Thailand as an adult. Boonlieng studied finance but entered the restaurant industry to help an aunt and a friend open a Thai restaurant \u2014 then discovered she loved it. She opened multiple restaurants in the Bay Area, then moved to Los Angeles to help open another and never wanted to leave.<\/p>\n
As an owner of sweets-focused cafe U Dessert Story, with two locations in the Bay Area, Boonlieng wanted to incorporate some of her signature desserts at Thaim, too. Look for Thai tea panna cotta, matcha lava cakes and more. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Bangkok-raised chef is now serving vibrant Thai street food such as pan-fried noodles, grilled Isan sausage, Wagyu…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420982,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[2029,168154,1409,6522,136770,69927,168152,2303,48,52,51,47,50,49,16730,168151,2489,168150,168153,72],"class_list":["post-420981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-beverly-hills","tag-caviar-topped-hot-dog","tag-city","tag-culture","tag-dog-day","tag-easy-access","tag-fancy-west-hollywood-grocer","tag-l-a","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-new-restaurant","tag-once-quiet-corner","tag-scene","tag-seasonal-produce","tag-souped-up-sport-bar","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}