Thank you so much @jonkauffman and San francisco chronicle for visiting and reporting our restaurant. We really appreciated it. 😊 #sanfran #tycoon#tycoonsanfran #thaifood

You’ll find one of the Bay Area’s better versions of kao piak, a clear and savory chicken broth in which thick rice noodles spiral around chunks of real (i.e. bone-in) chicken and jiggly cubes of pork blood. The squid, prawns and mussels in the yum ta krai are all as tender as they need to be, showered in fish sauce and lime juice, as well as crunchy rings of lemongrass.

Beer, though, calls out most loudly for grilled meats. One should be skewered pink links of sai ua, a juicy and mild-tempered version of the northern Thai sausage. The lemongrass, garlic and makrut lime leaf aren’t ferocious in their fragrance; instead, they let the flavor of the pork through.

And the gai yang, grilled chicken, is marinated with turmeric, shallots and just enough palm sugar to draw the grill smoke to its skin like a cotton ball rubbed over thick stubble. The skin is charred and crisp to just the right degree, the interior shiny with juices. The grilled chicken comes with the requisite sweet-and-sour sauce, but its sister sauce, a lime-sharp jeaw made with toasted chiles and fermented fish, is the one you’ll be dabbing onto every bite.

By Jonathan Kauffman (link)