Thai Tree’s som tum Korat with grilled shrimp, shredded green papaya, tomatoes, green beans, palm sugar and lime, served with sticky rice. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer Timing has never been my strongest suit. I’ll never be a stand-up comic, elite tennis player, ballroom dancer or airline pilot.
But this week, I caught a break. As I took my first sip of an alluring, Thai-spiced old-fashioned named the Vogue ($14), I glanced at my phone to see the news that Madonna had taken the stage on Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach. Her record-breaking concert looked like a blast.
But if I’d had a ticket to be among the 1.6 million attendees in Brazil that night, I wouldn’t have used it. I’d have given it to the man behind Portland’s Thai Tree restaurant.
When Nonsee Oumkasem opened Thai Tree in early February, he slipped in, hermit-crab-like, to a familiar restaurant space. “My parents have worked here for (the space’s former tenant) Pom (Boobphachati) since 2007,” he said. “So we were ready to go when the chance came up to take over.
And we didn’t have to do very much, apart from changing the bulbs to give warmer light, swapping out the covers for the sconces, and lots of painting.” The color? A paint shade called “Thai Basil,” just released this year. Apparently not everyone shares my poor timing.
“Overall, this restaurant, it’s an eclectic mix of traditional Thai and also ...
pop stars,” Oumkasem said. “I wanted to make the place a reminder of m.