Thai Watermelon Salad
While it’s easy for burgers and hot dogs to take center stage on Fourth of July, no cookout is complete without a spread of delicious sides. And this Thai Watermelon Salad from Juniper Green might jus...
Thai Esane
Chef Nina Singto Keeps Her Wheels Turning
Summer evenings are hot in Fort Smith, Arkansas, but seven-year-old Nina Singto doesn’t mind. Feet on the pedals, hands on the bars, butt on the seat -- she rolls her little bicycle with its big basket full of freshly picked herbs and vegetables from her grandmother’s garden past neighbor after neighbor, all gathered in their front yards beneath porches and trees to catch a break from the stifling heat. Nina calls out to them in their native Laotian. Like herself, they are refugees, newly minted Americans, albeit ones with a taste for the flavors from their original Southeast Asian homes.
“Mak nav! (lemongrass)” Nina shouts out. “Phikkhu! (peppermint) San Bolisud! (holy basil) Mak phik thai! (peppers).”
The basket on the little bike quickly empties as the pockets on the little girl quickly fill.
“As a young child, I was hustling and bustling,” Nina says with a laugh, sitting in her sparkling new Thai Esane location in Brentwood, one of three restaurants this gifted chef and savvy entrepreneur now owns. “Growing up we didn’t have much. A little hustle and bustle here and there -- it helped.”
For Nina, that hustle and bustle began in her grandmother’s big backyard, helping grow the garden, and soon graduated to her grandmother’s kitchen, helping to feed the family. Aw lahm, a traditional and spicy Laotian beef stew, was the first dish that she learned to cook.
“Still to this day, that’s the best,” Nina says. “That’s the food that brings the whole family together. I’ve just passed it down to my kids now.”
Still, while her passion for cooking and feeding others developed in her grandmother’s kitchen, it wasn’t until 2007 that Nina began to share her culinary skills with the public. Her parents had opened King Market, a grocery store and cafe in Antioch specializing in Southeast Asian food and needed Nina’s help. It proved life changing. Nina had been cutting hair. Now she was cooking and serving, reawakening the feelings she had first experienced as a child in her grandmother’s kitchen. “I knew growing up that cooking and feeding others was just my passion,” she says. She decided to pursue it.
Photo 1: Ninas family photo
Photo 2: Nina as a child
In 2014, Nina opened Thai Esane on 12 South, her warm-hearted energy and flavorful fare quickly attracting a loyal following, one that soon outgrew the original space. Nina therefore relocated her flagship restaurant in 2019 to the traffic circle at the base of Music Row on Division Street, the same year she went up against three male chefs in an Asian throw down on the Food Network’s Guy’s Grocery Games and came away the winner because, of course, she’s Nina. Southeast Asian cuisine is her superpower. (Which means cheese is her Kryptonite. In 2020, Nina appeared on Chopped, but was quickly eliminated for not knowing what to do with the pungent chunk of Limburger in her food basket. “I don’t do cheese,” Nina says with a good-natured grin. “I’m Southeast Asian; I don’t know anything about cheese.”)
Cheesy cooking shows aside, Nina has built her businesses here in town through serving consistent quality and authentic Thai, Vietnamese, and Laotian dishes. “I stand behind my food,” Nina avers, adding with a playful grin. “I’m the queen of papaya salad.” It was Thai Esane’s commitment to great food and customer service that allowed Nina and her staff to not just weather the pandemic storm, but to even grow the business during the whole ordeal, opening a Brentwood location in February of 2021 and, around the same time, a Thai Esane takeout in the Assembly Food Hall next to the National Museum of African American Music. “It’s a short menu,” Nina says of the latter location, “but it’s going great as the tourists and office workers come back.”
As for what’s new on the menu for Nina, she has begun to serve up lighter dishes for the hot weather months, dishes like yum woon sen, a clear bean thread noodle salad as colorful as it is flavorful. Topped with freshly cut vegetables and cubes of chewy tofu, the savory dish with its enticing aromas of lime and cilantro and peppers blends with the spiciness of the noodles to provide a tasty and nourishing “visit” to the land of Nina’s birth.
“I want to grow as a person, grow as a business owner,” she says, and we have no doubt that she will. After all, she’s Nina Singto: mother, wife, chef, neighbor, entrepreneur, and American who has built her dream by keeping her pedals turning and her wheels rolling along.
Related Stories & Recipes
Thai Esane Gets New Digs
Thai Esane brings their vibrant cuisine to Music Row
East Side Banh Mi
East Side Banh Mi is the brainchild of chefs Gracie Nguyen and Chad Newton, a wife and husband team with multiple decades of cooking industry experience between them. (Appropriately enough, ...
Easy Stir-Fried Mongolian Beef with Onions
Homemade Chinese food might be easier than you think. Give it a try with this recipe from Brentwood's own Corner Asian Bistro.
