Homestyle Cooking

Ying Yukhontron’s first restaurant job was at Los Angeles’s beloved Thai spot Khun Dom, where she served tables and helped out in the kitchen. The Thai immigrant and child of a single mother came to the U.S. at 15.

“I was raised by a single mom who was a bartender,” Yukhontron said. “I didn’t get to work in a bar with her until I was 22 at a spot in Burbank. I’ve been in and around hospitality all my life.”

The family, which includes her husband and son, moved to Oklahoma City in 2024, and promptly discovered what fans of Thai food already knew: OKC does not have a wealth of traditional Thai options. In fact, the story of Thai cuisine in Oklahoma is similar to Chinese food, which means dishes were Americanized to make them less spicy, more sweet, and more reliant on preservatives rather than fresh ingredients.

Chinese food in the state improved with increased immigration, which led to more regionally specific food prepared in traditional ways, and spots like Tsubaki Szechuan and the original Szechuan Story helped broaden the city’s understanding of traditional Chinese food. Thai is finally getting its turn, and the city is better for it.

“We were surprised that we couldn’t find the kind of food we ate at home,” Yukhontron said. “That’s where the name of the restaurant, My Place Sip & Savor, came from. We wanted guests to enjoy traditional Thai food the way Thai people experience it. These dishes are the ones we cook at home for our families and friends”

Yukhontron and two friends — Lao chef Mai Phasay and operations specialist Dada Tan, who, like Yukhontron, is a Bangkok native — opened My Place last summer in the space formerly occupied by Union Wood-Fired Grill on NW 5th downtown. Although not originally designed to be a restaurant, the building was modified over the years by a few owners into a workable dining space with an excellent patio and Airstream trailer bar. The My Place ownership team made the important improvement of adding a dumbwaiter since the kitchen is downstairs and main dining upstairs.

Logistics and operations aside, the main draw at My Place is the food, as it should be. Yukhontron and Phasay are excellent chefs, and all three owners are happy to help diners understand why the restaurant’s approach to Thai food is very different than what we’ve seen from any other spot (with the delicious exception of the Mob Thai’d truck), beginning with OKC’s favorite Thai dish, pad thai.

Served “deconstructed” rather than mixed in a bowl, the pad thai is visually striking, and importantly, it allows diners to appreciate how each component contributes to the overall dish. It is noticeably less sweet than pad thai elsewhere, and the flavors are savory, sweet, and zippy without being muddled. The reduction in sugar means diners can actually taste tamarind, ginger, garlic, and peanuts as distinct flavors. It’s a stellar example of a Thai staple.

Yukhontron is convinced the curried lamb chops are the restaurant’s best dish, and she may be right. The panang curry is creamy and rich without overpowering the tender grilled lamb. We strongly recommend getting a side of sticky rice, because you’re not going to want to leave the curry in the bowl.

Phasay seems to be a soup genius of sorts, as it’s nearly impossible to decide which is better: tom yum koong, tom kha kai, or pok tak talay. Fingers crossed we get a soup flight option at some point in the very near future. The khao soi with beef is one of the metro’s best noodle bowls, too, as is the “pok pok,” a tom yum variation that gets its name from the noise the wooden pestle makes when it hits the clay mortar in traditional Thai cooking.

The heat levels vary on the food, and if you eat there often enough, they’ll learn your preferred level, a nice, personalized touch that takes the mystery (and risk for some) out of ordering new dishes. New menu additions are going live as we are going to print with this issue, including My Place wings — they do an amazing job with wings too — which come with sticky rice and a small papaya salad.

Yukhontron’s bartending experience shows up in the cocktail list, too, and the quality here is a pleasant surprise given the still relatively rare occurrence of a great craft bar in the metro’s Asian restaurants. (Yes, Ma Der, Bar Sen, and Akai are happy exceptions, too.) The Mango Sticky Rice Martini and Madama Wong are the standouts, and for the abstainers, the Thai tea is delicious, and will provide the caffeine kick you need to avoid the food coma from so many delicious options.