Whitney Thwaite, a science teacher at La Entrada Middle School, and her husband Hasan own both Nomadic Kitchen and May’s Vietnamese Restaurant in downtown Redwood City.
After moving to the Bay Area from Turkey, Hasan saw no opportunities for his fashion design profession. “A friend of ours suggested a coffee cart,” Whitney said. Hasan began making lunches for local teachers, which eventually led to their first culinary endeavor: a restaurant in the East Bay.
When COVID-19 hit, they shut down the restaurant and looked for a space closer to Menlo Park. In the meantime, Hasan took cooking classes, worked in local restaurants, and expanded his decades of experience studying cuisine.
The couple eventually found a new location in downtown Redwood City and opened Nomadic Kitchen. Next door to this empty building sat an already established Vietnamese restaurant: May’s. They saw this as an opportunity to not only start their own business from scratch, but also acquire another one, complete with its own kitchen staff.
Nomadic Kitchen serves Turkish cuisine inspired by Hasan’s Turkish roots, and May’s continues to be a Vietnamese restaurant. Upon opening the new restaurants, Hasan “brought all of his research and knowledge from other restaurants and put it into here,” Whitney said.
The most important part of owning a restaurant is “building relationships with people who eventually become regulars,” Whitney said.
The community they’ve built with their customers has been very rewarding but has also brought hardship. For Whitney this means “coming after school and waitressing, and then on weekends, going and looking for plates to buy,” she said, but “we have our family working here, even the people that we didn’t know before feel like part of the family now.”
Nomadic Kitchen offers two types of tzatziki: mint and dill. Both these dishes hit it out of the park, but the mint stands out for its strong yet not-overpowering flavor.
Coupled with an herb marinade, the chicken kebab is cemented on Nomadic Kitchen’s most ordered list. While $24 may seem to be a steep price, the plate includes two types of rice and a side salad, making it plenty of food for one. Beyond chicken, the menu features lamb, beef, and kofta kebabs.
When it comes to dessert, their signature is rice pudding. Smooth, sweet, and topped with pistachio, this decadent dessert packs a real punch. Sugary enough to satisfy your sweet tooth and light enough to avoid a food coma, this rice pudding will leave you satisfied.
May’s Vietnamese’s menu lives up to the high standard its sister restaurant sets up for it. “What the pho? This is so good,” is what your stomach might say to you when you try their noodles. This pho is a blend of tangy asian flavors with thinly sliced beef, flat noodles, mint, and bean sprouts in a flavorful broth.
There are a plethora of unique renditions of fried rice, but their take, with corn and tofu, stands out. The sweet inclusion of caramelized onions blends with crisp fried rice, a dish that needs no explanation; it is universal, versatile, and a true crowd pleaser.
May’s Vietnamese also offers a unique Vietnamese crepe, with a thin crunchy rice flour base filled with chicken, shrimp lettuce, carrots, and bean sprouts with a sauce on the side. For those looking to try something new, this is the item to order.
