The thing is, they might not—unless you ask. I ate two meals there, one with my spicy-food-loving Asian-born wife, and a second with an American friend. During Meal 1, we told the servers that we wanted everything Thai-style, that is, spicy with a minimum of sugar, and the chefs complied beautifully.
But at a second meal, served at lunch, when the restaurant was jammed to the rafters with dedicated neighborhood fans, I neglected to request my food Thai-style. And what I got tasted as if it had come from an entirely different kitchen.
The new Pin Kaow is a strikingly attractive room, furnished with booths sheltered by a traditional thatched wooden A-frame structure, decorated with lovely Thai wood carvings and plants, and punctuated by an attractive picture of Thailand's majestic King Bumphol, the world's longest-reigning monarch.
Meal 1 began inauspiciously enough, with the incomparable dish we call Thai beef jerky, slabs of chewy, wickedly flavorful beef burnished to the color of an Italian leather shoe. I like my nuah dad deal, as they call it, in drier, smaller pieces, but this meat is tasty enough, and the accompanying sauce, an oxblood-colored spice paste, is terrific.
But then things got more serious when our charming, graceful server brought a wonderful crispy rice salad from the specials board, and nam sod, ground pork mixed in a rice powder, fried chili and peanut paste, a dish from the Thai northeast made to be eaten with sticky rice, which the restaurant serves inside a bamboo serving vessel.
We rounded out the dinner with green beans tossed in a wok with shrimp, very Chinese but entirely pleasant, and a plate of Thai barbecued chicken, char-grilled and done on the bone, unlike in so many local Thai restaurants. I asked owner Joy Kittisoros why her bird lacked the spice crust you sometimes find on barbecued chicken in Thailand, and she told me that the chicken is marinated in the spices, but they fall off during the grilling process. Still and all, this is about the best Thai barbecued chicken in the city, so have at it.
When I came in for lunch, I ordered without any special requests, other than complying with our server's query as to how hot, on a scale of one to 10, we wanted our food. (We said four.) The first course, shrimp cakes, was amazing, five crunchy, golden orbs of almost pure shrimp meat, with the option of a sticky sweet sauce on the side. (I passed.)
Then came nam tok, sliced pork tossed with mint leaves, red and green onion, cilantro, sweet basil and rice powder for texture, a tasty dish to be sure, but curiously sweet. That's when I remembered that I hadn't asked for my dishes Thai-style, and the two that followed, panang curry and Thai sukiyaki, made me sorry for my memory lapse.
Pin Kaow's panang curry is a coconut milk-based paste, so it is naturally sweet, but this one, I swear, had added sugar. The chicken in the curry was perfectly cooked, and so was the green-bean, basil and lime-leaf mixture rounding it out, so more's the pity.
Thai sukiyaki is a huge pot of bean thread, or silver noodles with mixed vegetables and a variety of meats and seafood, in a broth swirled with cooked eggs—in other words, a real feast. But it again was laced with sugar, and all I could manage was a small bowlful.
Luckily, I was bringing food home to my wife, and both dishes turned out to be great. One was pad see ew, flat rice noodles, Chinese broccoli and eggs, stir-fried with a choice of meats—in this case, chicken. The other was an off-menu green vegetable Thais call pak boong, or ong choy in Chinese. (There is no English name.) The name literally means "hollow vegetable," and that's exactly what it is, reedy green tubes of a spinach relative, absolutely delicious when tossed in oil with a touch of garlic. Next time I'm at Pin Kaow—and it won't be long—I won't be so forgetful.