Thai Ni Yom is Thai food done right

Crammed into a small Kitsilano storefront, away from the bustle of downtown, you’ll find an excellent example of Thai food done well.

Thai Ni Yom at 2953 W 4th Ave. Unit 2 has little social presence. It doesn’t make the “best of” lists, and there’s no recent news coverage. It doesn’t exist for anyone consuming a restaurant recommendation diet purely of vertical videos.

While the bright red storefront is unmissable, the interior has an unassuming design that could place you in any other restaurant. It feels homely and welcoming. Rather than wow with decor, the team here has put their time and energy into the food.

And it shows.

The first dish I ordered was a pork salad called Larb. Like much of Thai food, the dish is always a contrast of sweet, salty and sour flavours, made up of pork, with mint, chilies and fish sauce. The best Larb dishes punch through your taste buds like a semi truck speeding past you on a highway. 

Thai Ni Yom is an exceptional example, the rice powder imparting a more robust taste. But each flavour is balanced nicely, well-cooked pork contrasting with the crunchy red onions. Their house-made sauce is also excellent, without overly salty or sour notes, beyond what you’d expect. And it’s damn pretty to look at.

In the last year, I’ve started cooking more Thai curry. It may seem simple enough, but it’s a tough dish to master, a balance of flavours that can easily tip too far into sweetness with too much palm sugar, funkiness with too liberal an addition of fish sauce or, what I can only call lameness, with too many kaffir leaves.

Whereas a place like Maenam deserves its accolades as one of, if not the best Thai restaurant in the city, Thai Ni Yom is going with simplicity over complexity.

The Green Curry was chock-full of tiny, quartered, pocket-sized Thai green eggplants, liberally cooked but still retaining their firmness. While the chicken was a little tougher than I liked, I cannot fault them for including such a good-sized portion.

But it was the curry sauce itself that elevated the dish. Perfectly balanced between each flavour profile, it’s a sauce you contemplate well after the last slurp. It was beautiful, an elevated flavour experience that at $20 was incredible value.

Thai Ni Yom is why I write these reviews. Under-reported and understated, it deserves a place amongst the best authentic Thai spots in the city, delivering delicious classic dishes that won’t break the bank.