Pad Thai is crunchy, oily goodness on a plate at Hattapon’s Thai Kitchen, where the noodle dishes come in just the right size, with just the right flavor. It’s filling, but it won’t leave you feeling uncomfortably full. The bean sprouts add a crisp, lightness to the dish and the peanuts on top add a savory crunch. It’s no frills dining.
The gluten-free Pad Thai is one of the most popular dishes at this Main Street establishment in Greenfield, which has been serving up Southeast Asian classics for more than a decade.
The food is inspired by restaurant owner Hattaporn Wattanarat’s experience wandering through the markets in northeastern Thailand as a child, shopping for fresh ingredients with her mother.
Her family didn’t have a refrigerator when she was growing up, so buying fresh vegetables and meat was a daily 5 a.m. activity. She loved shopping and eating fresh food from the market, but especially loved when her mother would buy her a sweet treat.
Wattanarat, now 55, smiles when she thinks about her mother guiding her in the kitchen and her six brothers and sisters who would also crowd around to help her mother cook. “When my mother cooked, all of us had to be in the kitchen except for my father,” she said.
Wattanarat came to the United States at age 38 in 1998 to learn English, unaware that she wanted to be in the restaurant business. After working in another Thai restaurant in Amherst, she realized she wanted to work for herself.
Now, she carries on the tradition learned in her mother’s kitchen in Thailand on Main Street in Greenfield.
Walk into Hattapon’s Thai Kitchen and you will find a two-woman show. The pair, co-owner Beth Greeney and Wattanarat, have no other employees and spend 10 to 11 hours per day working, not including time spent at the grocery store in the morning.
They often will work from 10:30 a.m. till 9 p.m. with few breaks. “You have to like the restaurant business to be in it. It’s a lot of hours,” said Greeney, a Greenfield resident of 15 years. “It’s been just the two of us, basically. We’ve had people help here and there, but not much.”
The restaurant is not your typical Asian food establishment with white table clothes and high prices. Here, the flavor is what’s important, said Greeney, 58. “We are not overly concerned about the presentation of the food, we are much more concerned about how the food tastes,” she said.
Wattanarat makes sure to always taste the food before it lands on a customer’s table. She wants her dishes to be saltier and less sweet than other Thai food places. The spicy papaya salad is her personal favorite.
You can reach Lisa Spear at lspear@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 280