History

Kao mun gai is Bangkok's hawker staple, a one-plate dish of poached chicken over garlic-and-ginger rice with chili-soybean sauce. James Syhabout, raised in his mother's Thai restaurant in San Leandro, brought the dish to Oakland in 2017 with Hawking Bird on Telegraph Avenue. The room runs the dish under fifteen dollars in keeping with its hawker origins.

Make it at home

Yield 4Hands-on 30 minTotal 1 hrDifficulty Easy

Ingredients

  • 1 whole chicken, 1.5kg
  • 300g jasmine rice
  • 6 garlic cloves, smashed
  • 20g ginger, sliced
  • 1 bunch cilantro stems
  • Salt
  • 2 tbsp soybean paste
  • 2 fresh red chilies, sliced
  • 1 tbsp ginger, grated
  • 3 tbsp light soy sauce
  • 1 tbsp rice vinegar
  • Cucumber slices and cilantro to serve

Method

  1. Poach the chicken in a stock pot with garlic, ginger, cilantro stems and salt for 40 minutes at a bare simmer. Lift out, rest 10 minutes.
  2. Rinse the rice and cook in 400ml of the chicken poaching broth with one smashed garlic clove and a knob of chicken fat.
  3. Mix soybean paste, chilies, ginger, soy sauce and rice vinegar for the sauce.
  4. Slice the chicken and lay over the rice with cucumber, cilantro and a generous spoon of sauce.

Tip from the editors. The rice should taste of chicken. Use the poaching broth and the rendered fat or it will read flat.

This is the TableJourney editorial recipe, modelled on the canonical bistro / counter version. The first place to try the dish in its city of origin is below.

Where to eat kao mun gai

Kao mun gai in Oakland

Hawking Bird ★ 4.3

Thai$$temescalTue-Sat 11:30-21:00, Sun 11:30-20:30

Hawking Bird on Telegraph in Temescal runs a Thai weekend brunch on kao mun gai and double-fried fillets. The fast-casual sibling to two-star Commis.

Order: Kao mun gai plus the Hawking Bird sandwich.

Tip: Weekend brunch is the strongest order; James Syhabout's cheap-eats sibling to Commis.

4901 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland, CA 94609

Champa Garden ★ 4.4

Lao$$san-antonio

Champa Garden on 8th Avenue in Oakland's San Antonio neighborhood runs Lao family recipes since 2006. Quiet block, line out the door on weekends.

Order: Nam khao crispy rice salad.

Why locals love it: Off Lake Merritt on a quiet 8th Avenue block; the Bay Area's most authentic Lao kitchen runs largely by neighborhood word of mouth.

Tip: Bring two friends and order across the menu; portions are generous.

2102 8th Avenue, Oakland, CA 94606

Vientian Cafe ★ 4.3

Lao$$fruitvale

Vientian Cafe on Allendale Avenue in Oakland has cooked Lao-Vietnamese-Thai plates for two decades. Off the main strips, regulars only know.

Order: Lao sausage with sticky rice and papaya salad.

Why locals love it: Allendale neighborhood, away from Telegraph and the Fruitvale strip. Two decades of Lao-Vietnamese-Thai cooking with no media noise.

Tip: Cash only is faster; the rice plate combos are the under-radar value lunch.

3801 Allendale Avenue, Oakland, CA 94619

More cities are in research. Want kao mun gai covered somewhere specific? Tell us where you want to eat.

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