Glai Baan Serving Thai Street Food Starting Tonight, September 12

Glai Baan Thai Street Food is opening tonight at 2333 East Osborn Road, across the street from Binkley's in the spot that most recently housed Mejico.

Co-chef/owner Pornsupak "Cat" Bunnag is opening the restaurant with her boyfriend, Dan Robinson, she says. She and the restaurant's other cook are both from northeast Thailand.

Bunnag will be focusing on the food of Bangkok, where she was born.

"It's street-style food because that's what I really want to eat when I'm here and miss Thailand," she says. The menu and plates will be on the small side, but Bunnag is shooting for huge Thai flavors.

Sticky rice, grilled meats, and papaya salad are on the menu. So is a Thai steak salad known as num tok. Bunnag will chop up grilled New York strip for this "salad," tossing the meat with cilantro, red onion, Thai basil, chile, and rice roasted with kaffir lime leaves that are ground and added to the mix as a powder. She'll be simmering tom zab, pork-broth soup thick with baby back ribs and the flavors of galangal, lemongrass, and kaffir lime.

Bunnang will be using heirloom tomatoes and sources produced locally when possible. She is a wine lover and has come up with a wine list that, she says, goes nicely with Thai food. Beers will be local or from Asia. Cocktails will feature local spirits.

Glai Baan, it seems, won't be your typical Thai joint.

Glai Baan will be open Tuesday through Thursday, 5 to 11 p.m., and Friday and Saturday 5 p.m. to 12:30 a.m.