"Portland's love affair with Thai cuisine belies a certain demographic incongruity. The metro area has more than 100 Thai restaurants-double if you count carts and pop-ups. Yet only around 6,000 people of Thai descent live in Oregon, making up just 0.14 percent of the state's 4.27 million population, per the latest census. There is no significant immigrant population to explain the city's full flowering of Thai food cultures, as you find with, say, Mexican food in Southern California or Chinese food in Vancouver, British Columbia."
"With due respect to the legacy of Bangkok Kitchen (a popular Portland Thai restaurant in the 1980s and '90s) and the Siripatrapa family who ran it, many trace our city's Thai food obsession to an American guy from North Carolina by way of Vermont by way of Thailand via the late-twentieth-century western backpacking trail- Andy Ricker, who opened Pok Pok in 2005. His generation of Gen X Portlanders helped remake the city: uncompromising, punk-twinged, flavor-forward, and almost preternaturally cool, however you define it."
"In contrast to peers, Ricker was also quite serious about recreating dishes in Portland you may have previously found only in Thailand. Soon Pok Pok won James Beard Awards and showed up on national best-of lists and television shows. By 2015, The New York Times declared, "In Portland, Thai Food Moves Beyond the Usual.""
"Maybe our climate suits the food, a riot of heat and sour and sweet and salt to cut through the dreary drip with a satisfying crunch. Or maybe we were readier than most places to challenge the hegemony of pad thai et al. Portland is open-minded, yes, but also semi-ironically oriented toward a group-herd version of iconoclasm. Somewhere along the way, Thai food became embedded in the local consciousness, our answer to New York City steakhouses or Kansas City barbecue."
Portland has more than 100 Thai restaurants, including carts and pop-ups, despite having only about 6,000 people of Thai descent in Oregon. The area lacks a large Thai immigrant population that would normally explain such a concentration of Thai food. The city’s Thai food obsession is often traced to Andy Ricker, who opened Pok Pok in 2005 after traveling through North Carolina, Vermont, and Thailand. His approach emphasized uncompromising, punk-tinged, flavor-forward cooking and serious efforts to recreate Thai dishes in Portland. Pok Pok gained major recognition, including James Beard Awards, and helped shift Thai food beyond common expectations like pad thai. Portland’s climate and local openness also supported the food’s popularity, and Thai cuisine became part of local identity even after Pok Pok closed in 2020.
Read at Portland Monthly
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