Nong's Khao Man Gai (SE Ankeny)
Nong Poonsukwattana landed in Oregon from Bangkok in 2003 with $70 and a suitcase, and opened a chicken-and-rice cart in 2009. The birds are Marys Free Range, broken down in the shop every day. She sells one dish, done the way Bangkok does it.
Why go
Nong runs a whole-chicken program and nothing on the bird is wasted. Her crew trims the fat first and renders it with shallot, galangal, pandan leaves and garlic, and the rice cooks in that oil.1 The birds go into the pot whole and unseasoned, in water with ginger, pandan and garlic, and come out in thirty-five minutes.1 The bones go back into that same broth all day until it is a super stock, and the stock becomes both the rice and the soup on your tray.1 She learned the discipline before the recipe: In Thailand, it's normal for restaurants to focus on one dish.
2 She spent 2008 at Pok Pok as the only Thai cook on the line.1
Order this / avoid
- Order: the khao man gai, with the soup, and use the sauce on everything. Nong on the plate:
It's about balance.
1 - Avoid: arriving expecting each component to hit hard on its own. Nong has heard that one:
They think that every part of it has to have flavor, like a burrito. But it doesn't work that way for me.
1
What locals & experts say
- Eater (Hillary Dixler Canavan, 28 January 2016): Poonsukwattana on why the price is what it is,
That is my work. I want people to taste the chicken and rice I'd make for my friends. It's not just me charging you money.
1
Good to know
- Two Portland doors. This is the SE Ankeny counter. The downtown one on SW 13th Avenue has its own entry, and nothing on this page was written about that room.
- The sauce travels. Nong bottles it and sells it nationally, so a jar is the thing to take home.2
- Booking: counter service, no bookings.
Verdict
should-visit — One dish, and every part of it comes off the same bird. Her crew renders the fat with galangal and pandan and cooks the rice in it, the bird poaches thirty-five minutes in ginger and pandan, and the bones go back into that broth to make the soup on the tray. Nong Poonsukwattana built this from a cart in 2009 after a year on the line at Pok Pok, and she now bottles the sauce nationally. It sits below the top rung on evidence rather than on cooking: Eater's reporting is ten years old and pins to the operator rather than to this counter, and no critic read here has scored this door.