Chef Nattaporn Pinpech, known as chef Tobb, built a steady fanbase for their restaurant Secrets of Tiger, with its Thai street food menu bursting with memorable dishes such as Yum Dek Dormitory, made with Mama Thai Instant Noodles. But while Secrets of Tiger feels
casual, Pinpech’s new restaurant Payakk is more considered, a spot that feels more date night-coded through moody lighting and gorgeously plated dishes. Pinpech translates her Thai dishes into a Bay Area context with seasonal ingredients, as most good restaurants here do. Dishes feel local in some senses, but with bold Thai flavors (see below: the fried eggplant).
The vibe
Payakk has a cozy, worn-in feel that permeates the two dining rooms, despite having opened relatively recently in September of 2025. Entering the first dining room, the wood-paneled walls and plentiful plants channel the 1970s, complete with knick-knacks piled into every nook and cranny, from antlers and mismatched older artworks to Thai prayer flags and records behind the bar.
The other dining room is sleeker: painted in a dark green with gold accents, a mural of a tiger watches over the room, roaring, a nod to the restaurant’s name (which means “tiger” in Thai) and the restaurant’s tagline that accompanies its Instagram page: “The roaring of Thai supper club.” More plants spill into this side of the restaurant in a cozy vignette filled with additional tchotchkes, a pleasant area to rest your eyes and look over the fun items scattered throughout the greenery — a spotted leopard statue here, a vintage paint there, and lights everywhere, including fairy lights, blue grow lights, and even a tableside lamp. The tables are all made of wood and adorned with tabletop lamps, making menu-reading (and, okay, picture-taking) even easier. But the lamps also add an attractive glow to the room that proves irresistible as a nighttime dining space.
What to order
- The fried Hodo tofu custard ($16) and crispy prawn toast ($18) are excellent bites from the small plate section. Honestly, it was hard to choose just two as everything looked good. The tofu itself is made by the Payakk team with organic soy milk; when flash-fried, the exterior turns into this airy, crisp texture that our table couldn’t get enough of. We dipped those bites into the sauce, which resembles a sweet Thai chile sauce. The crispy prawn toast was another study in flavors and texture. The prawn mousse held its own against the milk bread, which stayed soft on the inside while getting a lovely fried texture on the outside. Each slice gets a dollop of sriracha mayo and salmon roe, which adds creaminess and salt. It’d be difficult not to order these again on my next visit, but if I am with a larger group, the fried tofu custard is a nice snackable bite for everyone.
- The fried eggplant and tomyam soymilk cream ($22) really wows. The dish arrived as a huge, fried eggplant half, closer to the bulbous shape of a globe eggplant. Plated on top of the tomyam soymilk cream, the top of the fried eggplant gets another dose of that cream and comes studded with halved cherry tomatoes and sliced figs, with herbs delicately placed in between to give this dish a seasonal feel. The interior of the eggplant was perfectly cooked, soft on the inside, with an expert fry (a trend, it seems) creating texture and nooks and crannies for that spicy-sour soymilk cream to seep in.
- For the pad Thai stans out there, Payakk serves a great version. The Pad Thai Chaiya ($39) is a rendition from southern Thailand, made with rendered coconut milk, red curry paste, and shrimp fat. The dish comes loaded with shrimp and crab meat, with two grilled tiger prawns on top, plus bean sprouts, scallions, and lime on the side. It hits those savory-sweet-citrus notes that are a hallmark of the dish, but it’s a much richer version than you might expect from your local Thai takeout.
- The fried pork jowl fried rice ($29) is the one dish everyone seems to be talking about, and I’m joining the chorus: the siren call of a crispy, breaded, fried pork jowl over fried rice is irresistible.
- Our table was really impressed with the tender Chilean sea bass with turmeric curry ($39). I found myself spooning that mild curry over my rice, trying not to hoard all of the fish at the table. It has me excited to try Payakk’s other fish curry dish, the Keang-som fried white seabass ($39) in a “tamarind-forward and chili-hot” sour curry on my next visit.
The drinks
For cocktails, Payakk offers a mix of signature and classic cocktails, and our group enjoyed the tequila-based Love is the Drug ($18), made with tequila blanco, Lo-Fi Gentian Amaro, agave, yuzu, and rosemary, plus the Blush, a take on the white Negroni. The wine list offers red and white options hailing from California brands, with most glasses hovering around the $13 mark (though some go as high as $21). Bottled and canned beer options are limited mostly to Singha, Leo, and Chang beers, but they do have Singha and a Fieldwork IPA on tap. Lastly, the restaurant does have four nonalcoholic options that feel considered, such as Bagheera ($13), which combines green grapes with lime, along with makrut lime leaves.
Insider tip
If you’re wondering whether the records behind the bar are purely for decor, they’re not — the restaurant hosts vinyl listening nights. Our server told us the restaurant recently secured a DJ to spin every other Friday, so check out the restaurant’s Instagram page, @payakkstory, for the latest event info.
Best for
I called Secrets of Tiger a “hidden gem” when I wrote about it back in April, but I can’t help but feel like that’s an apt descriptor of Payakk as well. The Montclair neighborhood is an area I rarely visit, and in that context, stumbling upon Payakk feels like a true discovery. I feel that way about Pinpech’s restaurants because there’s so much to really enjoy and discover in those two spots that I wasn’t expecting. And it’s that surprise element that I find so alluring that I’d be willing to seek it out again and again.
