When Utumporn Killoran opens her front door promptly at 5 p.m. on a weeknight, folks are waiting to get into Thai Street Food. They have a certain gleam in their eyes.
Killoran heads back to the open kitchen. While chatting in Thai on her cellphone, she washes a pan here, slices cukes there and hand-squeezes limes in a precise fashion as Otis Redding croons “Dock of the Bay.”
An order flies in for pad kee mao, the iconic Thai noodle dish better known as “drunken noodles.” Killoran heats vegetable oil in a wok-like rounded pan over very high heat on an old commercial stove. Cracking two eggs single-handed, she scrambles them before adding a handful of moistened wide rice noodles and precut chicken pieces. The oil crackles and spits as the ingredients brown.
She collects sliced carrots and white onions, chopped green onions, bok choy-like greens and adds them along with a ladle of broth, rice wine, soy sauce and finally, finely chopped Thai peppers and Thai basil. This slight woman picks up the big pan, swiftly spoons into a take-out container and dusts it with black pepper before closing it.
Killoran works so fast her hands almost blurr as she chops and stirs. A few years of working solo in a food cart will make you quick, so it’s remarkable that Killoran had not only never cooked at a restaurant before but she also didn’t learn at home.
Home is Udon Thani, a city in northeast Thailand close to Laos, northern Vietnam and southern China. “My mom cooked, but I never really learned,” Killoran said. The region she comes from is called Isan and she loves Isan dishes such as larb (spicy ground meat salad), papaya sald, Thai basil chicken and, particularly, sticky rice. When she moved to Bangkok, people would say “she’s an Isan” because her nose bridge is flat, not arched. “They say our noses are very flat because we eat sticky rice,” Killoran said.
She left for Bangkok as a teenager to earn a degree in electrical engineering and worked there for many years. When she met and married her husband, they decided to move to the United States, specifically the Aurora metro area. “I lived in Bangkok for so long I think I should get out to see other things,” she said.
Because her English is fairly good but not polished, she decided she couldn’t persue her field in the U.S.
“I needed to do something simple and easy,” Killoran said. That’s when she thought of food. “I ate this food all my life so I know the taste,” she said, so she had to experiment to figure out how to make all those dishes like pad thai, larb and green papaya salad.
She and and a friend started to build her Thai Street Food cart. “It was a good way to start because I was quite tight on money,” she said. In the process of creating it, she said she grew to know “every corner of Home Depot.”
The cart was an immediate success when it opened on the 16th Street Mall in February 2009.
“It was very nice because of the people. I got to see the culture,” she said. The four-by-six-foot cart had just enough room for one person to stand, cook and serve.
“I wake up at 5 a.m. to set up the cart,” she said. A line formed whenever she was open so it was four or five hours non-stop on her feet. In Bangkok she labored for various firms, but “I’ve never worked hard like this,” Killoran said.
When she needed a commissary to prepare food for the cart she found her present space in Aurora. At first, the restaurant was only open on weekends because Killoran was in the cart on weekdays. After three years, the cart was parked in June and the restaurant opened full time.
Killoran remains the only cook the business has ever had. She has one waiter for lunch and another for dinner.
Most Thai restaurants offers a range of proteins and rices and seasoning that ranges from mild to “thai hot” but Thai Street Food adds another decision: “juiciness.”
“That’s just about me. In Thailand, dishes like pad Thai are dry,” she said, meaning that the dish is moist but the noodles are not swimming in sauce. But her cart customers started asking for more sauce because they would take it back to the office and microwave it and the food would be too dry.
As for the heat choice, caution s advised. Killoran’s Thai hot is blistering. Alcohol is the best antidote because it disolves the active ingredient, capsaicin, but she doesn’t have a liquor license yet. She does provide huge mugs with refills of her strong Thai iced tea.
A few even ask for “double Thai hot.” and she wondered “‘Are you sure?’ I don’t want to see it. It’s only burning.” The point of the cuisine isn’t some macho, tongue-torching tiff, it’s just big flavor.
About half of her customers are young Asian-Americans of college age and above, she said.
“Young people – they love the flavor but it’s too strong – too sweet or too sour or too spicy – for old people. It’s the same in Thailand.”
The lack of beer and her policy of only accepting cash may have deterred a few diners but she’s developed a slew of regulars – you might as well call them devotees.
“They call me ‘Anna,” said the 42-year-old owner/chef, referring to her married name, Anna King. She lives in Aurora with her husband and 15-year-old son.
“It’s easier to say than Utumporn and you don’t forget it when you walk out the door.”
While still strugglisng to establish the business, “If we can survive a year we’ll be okay,” Killoran said. If you ask her customers, success is a foregone conclusion.
As one said while waiting for his drunken noodles with shrimp and chicken: “This is the best Thai food in Denver. Period.”
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On the menu at Thai Street Food
Tom yum soup with tomato, mushrooms, onions, lemon grass, lime leaves, galangal, chilies, and lime
Basil chicken with onion, garlic and chilies
Panang curry with coconut milk, lime leaves and peanuts
Pad Thai noodles stir fried with bean sprouts, green onions, peanuts
Glass noodle salad with shrimp, chopped pork, chilies, lime juice, fish sauce, onion, green onion, cilantro, and mint
Chinese broccoli with garlic, chilies and bean paste sauce
Larb moo: spicy minced pork salad
Green papaya salad with salty crab
Mango with sticky rice: seasonal
Thai Street Food
11650 Montview Blvd., Aurora
303-587-2293
Thaistreetfooddenver.com
Great article. I am also a devotee. This is what Aurora really should be about. Ethnic foods. Not the chains. Be patient service is dictated by the crowd and she is the sole cook. Enjoy the company and great food.