On May 1, Gold House unveiled its annual A100 List, recognizing the 100 most impactful Asian Pacific leaders across industries. See the full list here.
Earl Ninsom has always strived to highlight interesting flavors and textures in his Thai dishes—unique from those he saw popularized in their Americanized forms at Thai restaurants across the United States.
At Portland, Ore.’s Langbaan, Ninsom’s most critically acclaimed restaurant, the menu changes every couple of months. Each new dish attempts to honor the traditional Thai cooking Ninsom grew up with in Bangkok—as well as the Thai cooking he didn’t grow up with, from diverse regions of the country.
This spring, the restaurant’s five-course tasting menu centers on Thai street food, and features skewers plated in a beautiful one-bite fashion, as well as a catfish dish featuring spicy fresno peppers and sweet coconut cream.
Ninsom uses seasonal fruits and vegetables from the Portland area, infusing the sweet with the spicy, matching the herbaceous with the sour. In this way, Langbaan is quintessentially Thai—but also quintessentially of the Pacific Northwest.
Opened in 2014, Langbaan is certainly Ninsom’s most praised restaurant among critics, earning acclaim as both the first Portland restaurant and the first Thai restaurant to be awarded the James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurant. But Ninsom has developed and co-owns seven Thai restaurants in Portland, curating exciting menus, each spotlighting a different style of regional Thai cooking.
There are the two locations for Hat Yai, Ninsom’s affordable and casual walk-in spot, which features fried chicken curry roti, paying homage to the food of southern Thailand, where his father was born. There’s also 2020 James Beard Award finalist Eem, a Thai barbeque and cocktails joint that he co-owns with two other people, which has earned a reputation for its distinctive Thai-style Texas barbecue flavors.
Phuket Cafe is inspired by the energy of Bangkok, where Ninsom was born, but its creative spins span continents with Chinese, Malaysian, Muslim, and American influences. Yaowarat, named for Bangkok’s Chinatown, and PaaDee, which literally translates to “bring good things,” include comfort foods that remind Ninsom of his childhood memories in Thailand.
And hidden inside Phuket cafe a few nights a week is the intimate 24-seat Langbaan. Ninsom credits his most acclaimed establishment with reinvigorating his love of developing restaurants.
“If you come every two months, you actually get a whole new experience of eating food from an area you never heard of,” Ninsom says. “We do an intense amount of research … and once the team nails one menu, they push forward and are already thinking about the next.” When asked why he thinks Langbaan in particular has resonated widely with casual restaurant goers and critics alike, Ninsom says that it’s the “uniqueness.” He remembers when he invited a local chef to come try Langbaan before it opened, and the chef said, “Oh, there's nothing like this in the country.” Ninsom then knew he hit the jackpot.
And while each of his restaurants offers a different experience to visitors, Ninsom ensures that his employees across locations are inspired by one singular motto: “Be a positive force for good—don't settle!”
He’s quick to spotlight the importance of developing a good work environment for both his front and back of house—and how important it is to reject the work-until-you-drop stereotypical attitudes of the restaurant business. Ninsom knows what it's like to experience burnout. At the first restaurant he developed with his family in Portland, he remembers working six and a half days a week, with no vacation, for a year and a half. In order to run a successful business, he says, employees must be paid well, have benefits, and not be overworked. And he hopes this approach to being a restaurateur inspires Thai communities—both in and outside of Portland—to pursue the industry as well.
“We go out and eat and have fun, having a good time in Thailand,” he says. “Why not just do the same thing here?”