Yai’s Thai Kitchen in Richmond serving up family recipes

The Doungkhae family, owners of Yai’s Thai Kitchen in Richmond, serve the same foods at their restaurant that they eat at home, said Oaky Nagorski, niece of owners Mno and Suchada Doungkhae.

“It’s the food we ate growing up,” Nagorski said.

The Doungkhaes have been in the restaurant business since they came to the U.S. in 1990. The couple opened a Thai restaurant in Houston called Bangkok Palace, and after only a few years, expanded to five restaurants with the same name. In 2007, the Doungkhaes got out of the restaurant business and focused on event catering instead.

Oaky and the Doungkhaes’ children grew up working in the family restaurants, Nagorski said, and they missed it.

The family opened Yai’s in January 2016, after Nagorski and the Doungkhae siblings asked the couple to go into business with them as a family and teach them how to cook their signature dishes. Yai means “grandmother” in Thai, and many of the recipes served in the restaurant belonged to their grandmother, she said.

“We wanted to keep those recipes going,” Nagorski said. “We really believe in our food. We just want to share that with people.”

Yai’s features an open kitchen, in which the family can be seen cooking, separated from the seating area by a glass wall.

“Little kids like to see the flames come off the stir fry,” Nagorski said.