Restaurant Review: Thai Food

Written by Gib Busch

Those who know the secret of how to get there make regular treks to the small SouthEast Asian town near Seongjeongri subway station. One of the most famous restaurants there is simply called ‘Krua Saen Sook’ (‘Thai Food’ in Thai).

Owner Taksaporn Phangesri  always has a smile ready for customers, and she welcomed Gwangju News reporter Gib Busch to talk about her life and experiences establishing a Thai restaurant in Gwangju.

Taksaporn Phangesri graduated with a bachelor’s degree in human resource management from Ubonratchathani Rajabhat University and then had a good career as a public servant with the Thai government. Despite her full-time professional job she also worked part-time in a Thai country-style restaurant.

Describing her early work life, she says, “I worked from 8 am to 5 pm at the government district office and worked at the restaurant until 11p.m. every weekday because I loved the work.”  In her hometown in Ubonratchathani province in the north eastern part of Thailand, her family still runs a catering business.

However, love also led her away from Thailand and to Gwangju. She met her Korean husband via her cousin who had come to work in Korea. Her husband was a chef in a Chinese restaurant. With their shared interest in cooking, they got along well and ended up getting married.

After their marriage, Taksaporn spent seven years in Gwangju as a housewife, raising her child until the desire to run her own business and be involved in a Thai restaurant reappeared. “I wanted to have my own business, have greater financial stability and enjoy working again,” says Taksaporn.

In 2009 she started the business with an initial investment of 5 million won from her mother-in-law, but she provided all management and supplies herself.

She also invested 3 million won of her own money to order real Thai ingredients from back home, saying, “I always choose the best ingredients. For example, the secret of delicious Phad Thai is the sauce, so I had to call my relative in Thailand who is a Phad Thai chef to ask how to make it. Now, I always use raw shrimp, never frozen, for better taste.”

The whole place is run 100% by Taksaporn. She describes the learning experience: “At first, my husband tried to help. He cooked in the Korean way, which is fast and mixes everything together, but Thai cooking is slow and we add a lot of ingredients at different times. Finally it ended up that I run the restaurant myself and let him work in a Korean restaurant.”

Taksaporn jokes about the time spent getting used to working alone. She says, “I remember the first year I ran the restaurant; I was cooking, waiting and taking care of the baby at the same time. I put the baby at the back and worked at it all together. Maybe that’s one of the secrets that helped me lose my pregnancy weight!”

‘Krua Saen Sook’ restaurant offers genuine Thai cooking and the recipes are very different from Korean meals. Some Koreans ask for kimchi and others mix Thai cooking with Korean food, making something very different from authentic Thai meals.

Customers should come to Taksaporn’s restaurant if they want to experience cooking with a genuine Thai taste. Meals recommended for people who have never tried Thai food include Phad Thai (stir-fried rice noodles with eggs, fish sauce, tamarind juice, red chili pepper, plus a combination of other ingredients) and Thai shrimp fried rice.

A version of this article appeared
in the November 2011 Gwangju News print edition.