Kin Kao: Thai home cooking on Commercial Drive

In Thai, kin kao means “eat rice,” the everyday way of saying it’s time for a meal. The phrase sums up what Terrence Feng and chef and partner Patchara Phoonchai serve on Commercial Drive: Thai comfort food rooted in home cooking, in a restaurant made for the neighbourhood. Neither of the two longtime friends had worked in a restaurant before. Feng, who came from IT, hadn’t pictured himself running a restaurant at first, and a home-cooked meal from his friend is what brought him on board: back from a trip through Europe, he asked his friend to make him lunch. “I went over to his house, he made lunch for me, and the rest was kind of history,” he says.

Street flair, home-cooked roots

The chef, a Bangkok native, cooks the dishes he grew up with, and the Kin Kao menu weaves in a few street food favourites, the ones travellers tend to discover first in Thailand. Rather than chase fusion, “we wanted to really stick with traditional Thai flavours, which still holds true today,” the co-owner says. The pad thai set the tone early on: guests kept telling the team they had never tasted one like it. It is still on the menu, made with rice noodles, tofu, bean sprouts and peanuts. The success of Kin Kao eventually paved the way for Song, a second restaurant the co-owner opened with a new team and a distinct menu.

The Kin Kao menu covers a lot of ground. A green papaya salad, made to order with a spicy, tangy dressing and peanuts, opens the meal, or its heartier cousin, the som tam MaMa, tossed with instant noodles and crispy pork belly. Grilled skewers of marinated pork collar sit next to chicken satay and fish sauce wings brightened with herbs and lime. The tom yum with prawns brings its sour heat and its perfume of lemongrass and galangal, while the curries range from a creamy chicken panaeng to a mildly spiced massaman built around a lamb shank. Dessert stays close to Thailand too, with a pandan and coconut pudding or a coconut crème brûlée.

Thai food and East Van craft beer

When the restaurant opened, Vancouver‘s craft beer scene was only starting to grow, and a few breweries were setting up in the neighbourhood. Strange Fellows Brewing was one of them, and Kin Kao was among the early adopters of its beers. The brewery’s Talisman pale ale still pours on tap alongside other local beers. Thai food and craft beer turned out to be a natural match, one that guests love just as much. The wine list focuses on BC, with producers from Naramata, Okanagan Falls and the Similkameen Valley, and the cocktails come pre-batched from Please Beverage Co., a Vancouver producer, from a margarita to a mango sticky rice. Thai iced tea and a tamarind soda round out the alcohol-free options.

Simple materials, all eyes on the plate

The Kin Kao dining room was designed by Scott & Scott Architects, and the owners arrived with one clear request: it shouldn’t look like a Thai restaurant. Everything rests on simple materials that are easy on the eyes and leave the spotlight to the food. Wood dominates, chosen for its calm and for the way it ages. “We wanted it to age well,” the co-owner explains, and so far it has: beyond a few coats of paint, the space has kept its original look.

A table for the neighbourhood

The restaurant was always meant to serve the community. The team hopes to see locals two or three times a week, and young families often settle in right at 5 p.m. for a quick dinner when nobody feels like cooking. Every dish can also be ordered for takeout, and some only get better with time: the co-owner finds that many of the curries taste even better reheated the next day, once their flavours have had time to come out. Hospitality matters as much as the food here, and the team greets every table with the warmth of being welcomed into someone’s home. Even guests who know Thai cuisine well tend to leave Kin Kao having discovered it from a new angle.

Written by Marie-Françoise Malo
Photography by Melody Lu and Stephen Wilde

Updated on October 18, 2026

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