Kaw | Photo by Nikki Buchanan
Thai and Lee Kambar (she’s Cambodian, he’s Iranian) describe their menu as “Khmer and Arab finger foods,” which isn’t, perhaps, as accurate or enlightening as it could be. For starters, Thai makes lots of daily specials that require a knife and fork. Meanwhile, “Arab” seems a misleading tag for dishes like gyros and naan, which make provincial Americans (me, in particular) think of Greece and India respectively. (Side note: naan is eaten in Iran. Who knew?) But never mind all that because this little place, tucked away in an unprosperous-looking strip mall in Chandler, is so charming you won’t really care about nitpicky descriptors anyway.
Thai spends her time in the kitchen; Lee takes orders, serves food and chats up the customers. First up, pork belly and shrimp spring rolls, wrapped in sticky, transparent rice paper and stuffed with vermicelli, bean sprouts, carrot and cucumber. Served with your choice of tuk trey (clear Cambodian fish sauce, equivalent to Vietnam’s nuoc mam) or peanut sauce, they’re light and loaded with textural contrast ($7.50). Eating two more wouldn’t be out of the question.
Spring rolls | Photo by Nikki Buchanan
The Arabic portion of the menu is short but don’t skip it. Here you’ll find three things: a garlic naan platter with raw onion, olives and what might be tzatziki (I’m going by the picture), a gyro sandwich and gyro bites. All I know at this point is that the gyro bites are outstanding, I mean, crazy-good. They’re just four bite-size pieces of a gyro sandwich — made with a slice of lamb and beef gyro meat, cucumber, tomato, red onion, dill pickle, all topped with a creamy cloud of garlic yogurt ($6.50). Next time, the entire gyro sandwich, so I don’t have to share ($8.50).
I asked Lee what was either Khmer or Arab about spam musubi, and he said, “Nothing. We just like to be global.” Fair enough. We got two sizable, tightly wrapped packets of spam and egg musubi, which were homey and tasty but not in the same league as the spam musubi at Lylo in Phoenix (or frankly, probably any local Hawaiian restaurant that serves it). I can’t taste the sugary soy sauce blend that makes this dish so yummy ($4.50 each). In fact, Lee brings us green sriracha, which is good in and of itself but all wrong for a purist like me.
Gyro bites | Photo by Nikki Buchanan
We finish up with Kaw, a daily special of caramelized pork belly stew served with white rice. The faintly sweet umber-colored broth brims with lusciously tender meat and luminous, faintly crunchy bamboo shoots, as well as two soy-tinted hard-boiled eggs. It’s comfort food plain and simple.
I’m eager to try more things on this menu — cured beef niam, for example, a lemongrass beef or chicken platter and Cambodian papaya salad, said to be less spicy than its Thai counterpart. One thing’s for sure: I’m headed back for that gyro.
444 E. Chandler Blvd., Suite 1, Chandler, 480-927-3865, facebook.com/Thailys-Restaurant
