Keep your Americanized pad Thai. I go to this KC restaurant for authentic Thai feasts
Editor’s note: Welcome back to our series Let’s Dish, Kansas City, showcasing some of our favorite restaurant meals.
When my boyfriend and four of his friends visited Kansas City to celebrate his birthday, we knew the first place these Californians needed to go: Waldo Thai.
They landed at the airport, picked up a rental car and drove straight to the restaurant at 8431 Wornall Road, where I met them.
As we dug into our feast, they were surprised to find pungent and authentic Asian flavors at a restaurant in the Midwest.
Other Thai restaurants around the area serve American favorites, like pad Thai and pad see ew. But in 2018, executive chef Pam Liberda told her husband, Ted, that she wanted to open a restaurant that served the flavors she grew up eating in Northern Thailand and that no one else in the city was serving. (The couple now run Thai restaurants across the metro area, also including Buck Tui BBQ in Overland Park and, their newest addition, MuNi in the River Market.)
That popular fare is fine, Liberda said.
“It is good. We can cook that food very well,” Liberda told her husband. “But, don’t you think it’s time for change for Kansas City?”
At first, he was hesitant and didn’t know if their customers would adapt to the flavors, herbs and spices specific to the Lanna cuisine of Northern Thailand. But Liberda told him to give her two years to prove she could make the restaurant a mainstay.
The first six months after opening Waldo Thai in 2018 were difficult, Liberda said.
She and her staff had to say no to customers often. No, they wouldn’t serve pad Thai. No, they couldn’t adjust the spice level of their dishes or make them without spice. If those aspects changed, the dishes would be completely different, Liberda said.
But then foodies spread the word about Waldo Thai, and more customers arrived for authentic meals as they were meant to be prepared, Liberda said.
The menu changes every few months, but some staples include two Lanna platters — the Khan Toke Lek ($90) and the Khan Toke Yai ($140). We ordered the latter for my boyfriend Leon’s birthday in March.
Leon visited again this month, and once again we ordered the Khan Toke Yai, which comes with 10 Lanna dishes.
They include nam prik orng, a pork-based relish with tomatoes, serrano peppers and fermented soy beans and shrimp paste; kia ma thua ma kheur, with chopped eggplant and long beans cooked with serrano peppers and fermented fish paste and shrimp paste; and gaeng hung lei, a curry with braised pork belly, palm sugar and spices that Liberda ate only on special occasions growing up.
All the dishes are served alongside fried pork skin, seasonal vegetables and jasmine and sticky rice.
The flavors of each dish are distinctly different, but, whether or not you’ve enjoyed Northern Thai food before, everything in the Khan Toke Yai is comfort food that melts in your mouth.
We also enjoyed some appetizers. The miang khum ($15) came with betal leaf wrap that we sprinkled with dried shrimp, toasted coconut, peanut, ginger, shallot, lime, Thai chili, fermented shrimp paste and palm sugar. Liberda described the mix of flavors as a “perfect marriage.”
The khao tod nam sod ($15), a crispy rice salad with cured pork sausage, scallion, onion, cilantro, peanuts, Thai chili and mint, also offered a great mix of sweet and savory flavors with the added crunch of the crispy rice.
You also can’t go to Waldo Thai without enjoying drinks from the ever-changing cocktail menu created by bar manager Darrell Loo. When the menu changes, Loo asks the staff for songs that match various themes that he can build drinks around and then creates a playlist customers can find by scanning a QR code on the menu.
Right now, the menu is based on songs the staff loves dancing to. As a superfan of Missouri’s own pop princess Chappell Roan, I ordered the Red Wine Supernova, with Mekhong Thai spirit, red wine, lemongrass and berries, and Leon got the Run Away with szechuan peppercorn-infused Bombay Sapphire gin, Dolin vermouth blanc and orange bitters.
Beyond the food, it’s the ambience at Waldo Thai that keeps us coming back. During that birthday trip, we ate and laughed until we realized the restaurant was closing around us.
General manager James Chang, who has recognized us every time we’ve returned to Waldo Thai, congratulated us on making a sizable dent in the huge Khan Toke Yai. (Even with six people, we took a decent amount of leftovers home.)
He wished Leon a happy birthday and gifted him a jar of chili oil that he makes in small batches — it sells out quickly online and around the area. Chang and other staff have also provided recommendations and introduced us to some of our other favorite spots around the city.
For days after we eat at Waldo Thai, we talk about the mouthwatering food and the genuine kindness of the staff, and that isn’t unique to us.
Years ago, Liberda was working at an event in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and an older man, who had never eaten one of her dishes, told Liberda the food transported him back to his grandmother’s home.
Throughout her career as a chef, Liberda said it was the best compliment she’s ever received. Leon and I would certainly agree with that man.
Leon likes to say that the food at Waldo Thai cures homesickness, even if it’s for a home you’ve never been to.
