SF’s top Thai chef drops new pop-up called Khao Soi Shop

San Francisco’s most famous Thai chef is bringing her popular curry noodle soup to the people.

On Friday, Pim Techamuanvivit, chef-owner of Michelin-starred restaurants Nari and Kin Khao, will launch Khao Soi Shop. The full-service pop-up will operate out of the mezzanine of Techamuanvivit’s upscale restaurant, Nari, which is located inside the Hotel Kabuki in Japantown. 

Techamuanvivit said she’s been toying with the idea of opening Nari for lunch (the restaurant currently serves dinner seven nights a week) but wasn’t confident the timing was right. The pop-up will give her team a chance to see how hungry diners might be for the idea. 

Plus, Techamuanvivit has something else in the works — though she was tight-lipped about the details when chatting with The Standard Thursday morning. “We’ve been working on a project that will center around khao soi,” she teased.  

For fans of Techamuanvivit’s cooking, the appeal of a khao soi-centric pop-up is self-explanatory. The comforting Thai curry features an aromatic creamy coconut broth, egg noodles, and pickled mustard greens. There’s a version on the lunch menu at Kin Khao, but the chef says the recipe she’ll use at Khao Soi Shop will be slightly different.

The curry noodle soup at Kin Khao is quite spicy, she explains, which works for the restaurant because its large menu offers plenty of options for diners who shy away from heat. At Khao Soi Shop, she’s dialing down the base-level spice; diners can still add as much or as little house-made chili oil as they like. Customers will also have several choices of proteins, including duck confit, chicken, and short rib. 

The tight menu will include a few starters, such as northern Thai sausages, and the fried chicken sandwich that drew fans to the Dogpatch, where Techamuanvivit operated Kin Khao during the pandemic. She’ll also introduce a new dish, khao soi mae sai — though it’ll be called “mae sai” on the menu to avoid confusion. She says it’s similar to khao soi but not at all spicy and more aromatic. It’s made with pork broth and rice noodles, which makes it a gluten-free option. “It’s really umami-rich,” Techamuanvivit said. 

For now, hours will be noon to 2:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, though the chef says she’ll expand that schedule if there’s enough interest. Takeout may be added later as well.

Customers can enter the mezzanine from Post Street, directly across from Korean restaurant Daeho. Techamuanvivit says the sun-drenched space perched above Nari’s main dining room has plenty of seating, and with Japantown’s bustling foot traffic, she’s optimistic the pop-up will be a hit. 

“I feel some change coming, and I feel hopeful,” she said. “I hope this is going to be the start of some exciting things.”  

Khao Soi Shop