Night + Market Song expected to reopen this week; chef responds to complaints

The much anticipated Night + Market Song opened last month on Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake, replete with chef Kris Yenbamroong’s regional Thai specialties, vinyl tablecloths, pink and orange color scheme and a poster of topless Cindy Crawford in short shorts.

However, the restaurant was closed for the last two weekends while Night + Market Song took its show to Coachella, serving papaya salad and laab to festival-goers. Yenbamroong said in an email today that the restaurant would remain closed until later this week due to “tragic news that forced me to leave Coachella early and get on the red-eye to NYC. I will be here for the next few days paying my respects to my loved ones.”

“Song is about ... me personally cooking for you (with 1 assistant) 6 nights a week, the way I did when Night + Market Weho first opened and we fed 2 people per night,” Yenbamroong’s email said. “That physically cannot happen if I am in the desert cooking for a bunch of drunk kids in the middle of 40 mph dust storms. To those who think we were ‘partying,’ know this: We were not. We were working harder in these past two weeks than we’ve ever worked at the restaurant and we did so because we made the commitment. Closing for the 2 weekends was the only way to make that happen. At Song, there is no ‘B team.’ There’s me.”

Yenbamroong’s announcement apparently was partly in response to customers’ complaints about the restaurant’s hours. Said one Yelper: “Closed for Coachella. Are you serious.”

Yenbamroong said he had agreed to be part of Coachella’s food lineup earlier in the year, when he couldn’t have known that construction delays would push back the opening to coincide with the festival. “That is why we had to close for so many days both in preparation for and during Coachella. Though Night + Market has grown beyond any expectations I may have had, we are still, in every sense of the word, a ‘mom and pop’ restaurant. Believe me, it still excites me to even see people dining at the restaurant.

“Those who know me know that it breaks my heart to be away from the restaurant for even a day.... As for the spiteful notes that have been left for us in our absence, I’ll take them as a form of flattery -- a sign that some of you really really miss our pork blood dipping soup.”

Night + Market Song will reopen on Yenbamroong’s return. “Hope to see all of you later this week,” he said.

Meanwhile, the original Night + Market in West Hollywood is open.

Night + Market, 9041 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, (310) 275-9724, www.nightmarketla.com.

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