I am Phen Bryan and Nohra Thai Kitchen is my labour of love.
Thailand is a country where food is everything. It is the foundation of family, of culture, of friendship… of life itself. It has the power to forge alliances, create enemies and incubate love.
So, being Thai, I come by my passion for food naturally. But beyond this, my mother and my grandmothers were masters of the art of Thai Cuisine and made it their mission to inculcate these talents in me. By the time I was seven years old, they had already initiated me into generations of family culinary heritage.
It began with the basics: How to select the right herbs from the garden. How to properly cut, season and prepare ingredients. How to choose the perfect fish for a particular dish.
By the time I was seven years old, my mother had determined that I was ready to prepare dinner for a visiting dignitary. I had the honour of the family resting squarely on my shoulders. The entire meal was mine to ruin or perfect. Including selecting and slaughtering the proper chicken for the meal. Through tears and stress, I managed to create a meal that brought honour to the family and launched me into the next phase of my learning.
Through my adolescence I continued to master the art, hone my culinary skills and, at my mother’s urging, created my own unique style. This is the essence of the art of Thai cuisine. Each generation learns the best from their forebears and then improves upon it with new combinations, ingredients and techniques which they can pass to the next generation. To this day, I’m still refining and polishing my technique and discovering new ways to advance the Thai kitchen.
Given my passion for Thai cuisine, you would think that I might have gone directly into the culinary field. But my route was a little more circuitous than that. After finishing university, I took on a number of different roles including: tour operator, NGO manager, political activist, event planner, media personality, team building consultant, translator for the spokesman bureau of Thailand, and more. And in the middle of all of that, I met and married my husband Joel and moved with him to Victoria where we are enjoying the beautiful West Coast life and raising our 16 yr-old daughter, Janey.
When the stars finally aligned, I decided to act on my passion for Thai food and take the plunge. The result is Nohra Thai Kitchen. I started the Nohra Thai Kitchen so that I can share with you my love of Thai food and see you also enjoy the exquisite tastes of elevated Thai cuisine.
True to my duty to build upon the food traditions passed on to me by my family, I am incorporating authentic Western Canadian ingredients ranging from Dungeness and Rock Crabs and Salmon to locally-sourced meats and produce. As a slight departure from Thai tradition, I am offering a selection of BC wines that pair beautifully with my menu selection. And if you enjoy a good cocktail, local star-mixologist Nate Caudle has designed some lovely Thai-inspired cocktails to prepare your palate for your meal.
Nohra is the name of the classic dance of Southern Thailand. From this bold, elegant and yet understated art form, Nohra Thai Kitchen derives both its name and its aesthetic. Bold, elegant, beautiful flavours of classic Southern Thai cuisine with subtle yet distinctive variations that take it to a new level.
