Midtown Lunch

Chinatown’s emergence as the hottest new food neighborhood in L.A. took another major step forward in the final days of 2014 when Andy Ricker’s Pok Pok Phat Thai joined Roy Choi’s Chego and Scoops in the Chinatown Plaza (Eggslut’s Ramen Champ has since joined them as well.) You likely have heard of Ricker’s brand of Thai food, thanks to super popular restaurants in Portland and New York.  But not everybody has welcomed Pok Pok with open arms and their Yelp page has quickly devolved into a mess of complaints, some fair but most completely unfair for a restaurant that is less than a month old.  Before you jump into the fray with a crappy review of your own, here are 5 things you should probably know about the new Pok Pok, complete with quotes we got from Ricker, who is currently in Thailand.

1.  Pok Pok Phat Thai isn’t Pok Pok.  So you went to Pok Pok on that last trip to Portland and loved the chicken wings?  Congrats!  This isn’t Pok Pok. Pok Pok is a full restaurant, a branch of which will be opening later this year up the street in the Mandarin Plaza.  This is Pok Pok Phat Thai, a quick service noodle shop dedicated to the kind of sautéed fast food they serve on the streets of Thailand.  If you want the wings, you’re going to have to wait a little while longer.

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It’s been two and half years since we first whined about Night+Market not being open for lunch, and while WeHo still has to go to Talesai for their mid-day taste of Thai food, the Silverlake branch of Chef Kris Yenbamroong’s Night+Market has finally answered our prayers.  N+M Song opens for lunch today, launching with a “fast plates” menu designed for quick lunchtime eating.  A few of the dinner favorites, like the khao soi, are available and the fried chicken sandwich has finally made it to the printed menu.  Plus you can get meat in your pad thai!  Check out the full menu over on Eater.

But wait… there’s more.

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