Portland Thai Restaurant Udom Somboon Opens on NE Broadway

When Thanapat Namsri, Thipsuda Phatumratanachot, and Ammy Nguyen met working at a Portland Thai restaurant, they knew what the standard American Thai menu looked like. It involved a handful of curries, noodle dishes like pad Thai and pad kee mow, maybe some crab Rangoon. Even in a city like Portland, known for its regional Thai food, there were dishes that the three didn’t find on local menus — dishes like khao soi haeng, a dry version of the popular Chiang Mai noodle soup, or gaeng hung lay, a Northern Thai pork stew. But Namsri, the man in the kitchen, also wanted to play with the flavors and styles of other cuisines, pulling inspiration and techniques from Japan, Vietnam, and Korea. “When we all came together in this… we wanted to bring other traditional foods, fusions, and foods you don’t see at Thai restaurants, combined with other countries’,” Nguyen says….