Renu Nakorn evolves again

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES

Above the restaurant’s burnt-orange booths is a retrospective piece of Renu Nakorn’s history. It’s there, hung up dead center, that a canvas collage compiles the reviews and recommendations that opened up the Norwalk restaurant to national appetites. Among all the overlapping words are those of LA legend Jonathan Gold as well as clips from eaters dispatched from The New York Times and GQ.

But the catch to all those well-meaning words is that they were spun together in a different time, formed out of the minds of writers who ate at a different Renu Nakorn. Gone is the restaurant’s former owner (whose Las Vegas eatery, Lotus of Siam, has since claimed the fame of being one of the best Thai restaurants in the country). Equally absent is the restaurant’s cracked-to-the-studs strip mall, replaced now by the kind of friendly, freeway-adjacent stucco squares that seem to get sprayed up overnight.

During that construction, Renu Nakorn took some time off for its own transformation. Months later, the restaurant has returned with an interior freshened by a couple coats of paint and a wall of flagstone. But among the more refined surroundings, the food remains the same, easily up to the restaurant’s original standards. And that’s what is most remarkable about the place—the restaurant may have lost some of its founding focus, but its soul has stayed the same.

What drives that introspective push is Renu Nakorn’s emphasis on regional Thai cuisine. Although the menu does go through the motions of listing pad Thai, satays and all the other takeout traditions, hidden throughout are dishes of northern Thailand, plates from Chiang Mai and Issan that all eat with a much different intensity than the typical Thai cuisine—these dishes are hot, salty and sour.

The easiest introduction to those tastes is the papaya salad. Som tum is probably the most recognizable Issan export, a mix of green papaya, Thai chilies, dry shrimp, tomato and peanuts all freshened up with a squeeze of lime juice. The julienned strips of unripe papaya are as crisp as cabbage, the dried shrimp (little baby things) pop with texture, too. Contrary to what’s surely the popular perception of papaya salad, the dish isn’t sweet—it’s more like a spicy slaw, one that goes well alongside hoh mok plar, little cups of coconut-milk steamed fish topped with Thai curry.

A similar opening option is nam kao tod. If ever there was a dish that actually ate with all the synesthetic flash usually attributed to excellence (ingredients as bright as the day, flavors that blend together like colors), it would be nam kao tod. The plate is a mix of half-moons of Issan sausage (which isn’t far off from a Louisiana link), crispy rice, onion, ginger, Thai chilies, peanuts, lime juice and cilantro. The rice (tiny little beads crisped up but not quite fried) pair perfectly with the crunch of the peanuts. But it’s the onion, lime juice and ginger that come together best—a trio of strong flavors all tied together to make one powerful plate that’s clearly deserving of all that extra-sensory praise.

Bucking some of northern Thailand’s aversion to the sweet side of things is kang hung lay, a pork curry from Chiang Mai. Influenced by its Burmese borders, kang hung lay is a mild curry that tastes more of sweet smoke than pure heat. But the most pleasing thing about the dish is when Renu Nakorn’s kitchen gets those cuts of pork just right—bite-sized cubes topped with a layer of fat so perfect it looks like icing.

But try ordering any dish with jackfruit (which is bested in both spininess and freakiness by durian) and you might get a warning. Plates like thum ka noon (shredded jackfruit and pork), says the waitress, have that same stale scent of onions that makes durian so famously foul. Jackfruit certainly isn’t that off-putting, but this is just a message of good faith. Besides, even if you do follow her advice, you will still eat up an excellent and wholly unique meal. And when she comes by the last time, arms full of plates scraped of their heat, you can joke about the jackfruit, too. “Maybe next time,” she smiles back.

RENU NAKORN 13019 E ROSECRANS AVE | SUITE 105 | NORWALK 90650 | 562.921.2124 | OPEN MON-THURS 11AM-9:30PM | FRI-SAT 11AM-10PM | SUN NOON-8PM | FOOD FOR TWO $20-35 | BEER, WINE

Tags: Food, norwalk, renu nakorn, Restaurants, thai