Thai Thai Asian Bistro
Words by Christina Stade
Thai Thai’s story begins on a March 2010 opening day in Norman. However, the restaurant’s owner and manager, Koi Strickland, traces her love for cooking and serving her community back to childhood summers in Thailand, where her father encouraged her to sell homemade meals to friends, family, and neighbors outside their house.
In 2005, Koi moved to Oklahoma and worked at a Thai restaurant in Norman. When asked what position she held, Koi said, “It was a small restaurant, so I just did everything, every day.” The experience was invaluable, and the owners became like second parents to her, but when they changed locations, she couldn’t stay with them. At that time, Koi and her husband—an Oklahoman who graduated from Norman High and then OU—took a leap of faith and opened a restaurant of their own. Looking back, Koi says, “That’s been the best move for us!”
Thai Thai celebrates its 15th anniversary in 2025, and it’s been a labor of love every step of the way. In the early days it was just her husband and his brother running the front of the restaurant and her mom cooking with her in the kitchen. “It’s like home, like family,” she smiles. In fact, the entire menu consists of the dishes Koi grew up eating, using the recipes she kept from her grandmother back in Thailand.
Koi’s commitment to authenticity and quality sets her restaurant apart. She explained, “In Thailand, whatever you catch that day, you serve that day.” She endeavors to keep as close to that tradition as possible by prepping for lunch each morning, then closing in the afternoon to shop and prep again for dinner. Thai Thai focuses on fresh, healthy ingredients, using only lean cuts of meat, opting for olive oil over seed oils and importing rice directly from Thailand.
When it comes to Thai cuisine, the flavor is in the sauce, and all Koi’s sauces are made daily in-house. For pad thai noodles—the national dish of Thailand as well as Koi’s all-time favorite—the sauce simmers on low for a full 10 hours. She says, “A lot of restaurants now, they buy the sauce.” But Koi prefers to honor tradition and meticulously follows her grandmother’s recipe.
Koi is heavily involved in the community, bringing people together through her food. She is always popping her head out of the kitchen to chat with regulars and understands the importance of building personal connections with her guests. She happily offers private classes and catering for events, as well as selling her sauces if you would like to try to recreate a dish at home.
For the truly ambitious home chef, Koi holds a semi-annual step-by-step cooking demonstration at International Pantry—Norman’s boutique kitchenware store which hosts a variety of Oklahoman chefs. The coveted dates are announced through International Pantry’s email newsletter. After attending last fall, the noodle dish I attempted at home later that week didn’t meet the standard of Thai Thai (probably because I cooked my sauce for only 20 minutes, not 10 hours), but the class was extremely enjoyable.
Norman’s food scene is now considerably more diverse, but Koi remembers a different time when she opened Thai Thai. Friends and neighbors who came out to support her would ask, “What’s Thai food?” She laughed as she recalled a few customers who tried it for the first time and told her, “Oh, it’s like healthy Chinese food!”
Even though there were comparatively few Thai spots in 2010, the response to Thai Thai was phenomenal. People could taste the dedication to quality. Within the first month the restaurant had taken off and has remained a constant since. The pad thai, pad see ew, and evil jungle curry are most popular, but Koi said all the fried rice dishes are a big hit as well. My personal favorite isn’t an entree, but the crab rangoon, which has a slightly sweet cream cheese filling folded into a thick pastry dough and is served alongside her homemade sweet and sour sauce.
Thai Thai Asian Bistro’s comfortable atmosphere, cleanliness, and welcoming staff make it an area go-to. But, at the end of the day, it’s the food that is the star of the show. One of Koi’s own customers visiting from Thailand said it best: “The pad thai here is better than the pad thai in Thailand!”