"My dream Thai restaurant"
Elephant Thai premieres vibrant new items as part of menu revamp; exclusive Ranch Foods Direct chef's table dinners highlight the harvest + more food & drink news & events
When Suwanna Meyer decided to relocate Elephant Thai, after three and a half years at its former N. Academy Blvd. spot, it wasn’t for insignificant reasons. “This was an opportunity for me,” she says. “I could make this new location my dream Thai restaurant.”
The move, to 4703 N. Academy Blvd. (near to Rumba Latin Cuisine and The French Kitchen) happened in mid-July 2024, allowed her firstly to add a cocktail bar to offerings because of expanded space. Secondly, she was able to express an artistic vision, commissioning a beautiful mural (of iconic Wat Arun as seen from across Bangkok’s Chao Phraya River) in the main dining room, which hosts around 10 more tables than the prior eatery.
And now, she’s completing a final desire to sync up food menus at both Elephant Thai and her first enterprise, Chaang Thai (located not too far away, at 7525 N. Academy blvd.) She opened Chaang Thai 11 years ago, and although it has a wine and beer license, it’s too small to add a spirits bar. Once the food menus are identical, Meyer says it will be more convenient for customers, who can either choose to visit whichever is closer to them, or whichever atmosphere they prefer. Or, if they really want a cocktail with their curry, they can default to Elephant Thai.
Meyer grew up in Central Bangkok, whose flavor influences most of her offerings. Though she says she’s also well versed at cooking Northern Thai-style food because her father is from that area and taught her its specialities.
“People from Northern Thailand, they like dishes that are salty first, then lightly sweet,” she says. “In Bangkok, the flavors need to be savory, sweet, sour and salty, but not too sweet — just the perfect combo.”
This past February was the most recent time Meyer visited Thailand, where she always has an eye out for ideas for improving her menu with new additions, she says. She wants longtime customers to be excited when specials and new dishes come on. The new menus are being designed to be more visual as well, with photos of dishes to aid making selections.
I sat down with Meyer — our newest Side Dish Dozen member! — a few weeks ago to taste through four new plates she’s particularly excited about.
The first, beautifully presented, is a new glass noodle Pad Thai variant topped in fried soft shell crab. It’s a textural delight, with a crisp exterior to crunch through on the way into delicate meat. The crab’s gourmet richness folds into the tamarind-tart sauce wonderfully.
Second, and technically four new items in itself, is Khao Soi, the sweet yellow curry item that’s become quite popular around the Springs in recent years. Guests will be able to choose between toppings of a deep-fried pork cutlet; slow-cooked beef; slow-cooked chicken drumsticks; or panko breaded tofu. “We’re upgrading Khao Soi to the next level,” she says, noting she uses a wide vegetable noodle in place of the typical egg noodle, so the tofu variant can be vegan flexible. I sample the chicken option, pulling the tender meat off the bone and I quickly become absorbed in the dish.
Next up, pad ga prow places a fried egg on top of a bed of rice covered in your choice of protein (chicken, beef or pork), plus bell peppers, green bean and basil in a Thai chili-garlic sauce. The egg yolk bleeds and does what it does to highlight the savory symphony and evoke a little breakfast-for-dinner vibe.
Lastly, tom yum fried rice, also called Phuket fried rice, offers an aromatic experience, seasoned with lemongrass, shrimp paste, galangal, onion and tomato. Again you can choose your protein, but from an expanded list: chicken, beef, pork, tofu, shrimp, fish or mussels. Meyer selects shrimp for our photo shoot and the prawns add a nice redundancy to the rice seasoning, making for an overall enjoyable fried rice rendition.
Meyer teases one last dish that I don’t sample, which is the addition of two more green curry options joining three existing, which are plated with bamboo, zucchini, basil and bell peppers and protein of choice. One new variant will be another fried rice dish, with a fried egg on top.
“I’m happy for more options and different flavors,” she says.
That really sums up the full impact of Elephant Thai’s relocation and slight reinvention. It might have started with a personal passion to shape a “dream restaurant” but in the end it serves a better customer experience.
Sip with Schnip at Elephant Thai
Join us anytime from 5-8:30 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 17 at Elephant Thai for a special evening of service. For this night only, owner Suwanna Meyer will make Kaeng hang le, Northern Thai pork curry. That will be our featured Sip with Schnip collaboration dish with Ranch Foods Direct next month, as she’s graciously sharing her recipe! Come try it made by the pros so that you know what you’re aiming for. Kaeng hang le is a slightly fiery item, deep, rich and faintly sour with a sweet tinge, laced with galangal, ginger and lemongrass and garnished with roasted peanuts. It’s the type of dish you disappear into, eventually coming up for air to apologize to your dining mates for ignoring them. (I know this because I did it during my photo shoot.)
• Side Dish subscribers can receive a free Thai iced tea with their meal by request.
• Specialty Thai-style cocktails, $10
• Kaeng hang le with sticky rice, $16
- Kaeng hang le with sticky rice + a Thai beer, $20
- Kaeng hang le with sticky rice + a Thai cocktail, $24
Make time to cook this fantastic Filipino Pork Adobo recipe from Chef Katie Fisco of Baon Supper Club — this month’s collaboration recipe with Side Dish sponsor Ranch Foods Direct. We’re pretty confident it will put a smile on your face.
Stairway to Zevon
The way Ranch Foods Direct Owner/Rancher Mike Callicrate tells it, Zevon Burnett came on at the company two months ago as a humble meat cutter. He apparently hadn’t said much about his prior culinary chops in his interview, because it wasn’t until later that Callicrate came to learn exactly who he his team had really hired.
Burnett, by his own later telling, had graduated from the prestigious Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park; staged for a long stint at legendary training ground The French Laundry; worked for Le Cordon Bleu in France and as Executive Sous Chef at Wolfgang Puck’s Cut, New York.
“This kid has done more in his short career than I have done in my whole career,” says Ronald Hunter, owner of the Mediterranean Cafe downtown. He is in attendance at the inaugural Rancher’s Table chef dinner on August 31 at the Fillmore Ranch Foods Direct retail store. There’s only 10 seats available, and guests are seated at a high community table in the center of the market, flanked by shelves of food goods and the butcher’s counter. For a farm-to-table style dinner, you could say that atmosphere-wise, it’s a little on the nose.
Hunter worked with Burnett a decade ago at The Flying Horse Resort & Club, when Burnett was just 16 and entering the industry (he’ll be 27 in October). The young culinarian found a mentor in Hunter, who “instilled a service ethic in me,” he tells the group of assembled diners between course presentations. When I’m with Burnett in the back kitchen during prep earlier in the evening, he tells me he moved back to the Black Forest area a couple years ago because he grew tired of 100-hour work weeks and he wanted to prioritize his family.
He started some private cheffing work before deciding to take a break. Then he says he got bored and began to miss cooking, but he didn’t want to go back to doing it for someone else. He desired something of his own, even if that be a tiny weekly chef dinner series for now. He’s not shy in saying he wants his own restaurant some day, “something bigger.”
I point out that prepping elaborate weekly chef’s dinners outside of his regular RFD butcher shop hours seems to be a step back towards overly long work weeks, and he says, “it’s different now, it’s for myself.” I counter with “I think you’re just tuned this way.” After a pause, he concedes: “Yeah, it’s hard to break.”
So here he is, hanging his own products for his dinners in RFD’s dry-aging cooler — such as Callicrate American wagyu beef aged in Merlot for nearly two months, which will be served as thick New York Strips as the fifth of six courses. He’s had a beef consommé going for nearly three days in a big stock pot in RFD’s kitchen. He’s pickled and cured items for an absurdly oversized charcuterie board he built. It takes two people to carry. He’s proofed dough for two days and baked uniquely flaky-crusted, rosemary-garlic focaccia loaves. He tells his guests that he hand-foraged for items out near the Continental Divide the day prior for ingredients. And down to wine selections and an espresso liqueur-drowned, gingerbread tiramisu for dessert, he’s meticulously prepared every element, with an assist this night from RFD Lead Butcher Billy Cox.
Is he infallible in the kitchen?
No. Behind the scenes, I watch real-time as he realizes his babied consommé has taken on an off-flavor verging on burnt garlic. He hands me a spoon to taste it. Four-letter words fly. But an hour later when I’m seated out with the guests (I bought an open spot due to a no-show), I see that he’s recovered and turned the consommé into a creamy potato potage where the garlicky flavor has managed to fold in seamlessly.
Burnett says he will create different menus weekly, but the general theme is “rustic farmer’s table — simple food turned elegant,” that spotlights local ingredients.
Course two features lightly breaded and fried asparagus tips and halved Brussels sprouts with dandelion leaves in a saffron cream sauce. Course four plates the focaccia with dry-aged, fire-roasted bone marrow garnished with house-pickled capers and Alchemy Greens microgreens. He serves the wine-aged steak with a blue cheese-leek velouté, duck fat confit potatoes and seared wild mushrooms and broccolini. Everything’s plated on custom ceramic ware he’s had made locally. The dessert plate in particular is cool, as actually half a plate, with a jagged center, so it appears more like broken pottery.
I didn’t even mention the edible rosemary-sage-sea salt Ranch Foods Direct tallow candles that are lit as part of the charcuterie board centerpieces. Yeah, those too.
Want to experience Chef Zevon Burnett’s dinners? Seats are $150, which includes wine pairings, tax and gratuity. Book directly by calling Ranch Foods Direct.
Bites & Bits
• Pikes Peak Bulletin reporter Heidi Beedle reported last week on Manitou Springs’ Otis’s BBQ, related to a labor-related lawsuit, a bad food inspection rating earlier this year, and owner Stephen Eshelman’s plan to cease operations in Manitou as of Sept. 10, and seek a new location.
• Ordering is now open for the next Culinary Connections meal: Afghan food (vegetarian or chicken), to be picked up Sept. 20. (If you missed my recent story on the organization, click here to learn more about the creative refugee assistance program.)
• The New York Times released its 2025 Restaurant List, featuring the 50 best places in America right now. Two Colorado spots are featured: Grand Junction’s Bin 707 Foodbar and Denver’s Mezcaleria Alma. The latter comes from Chef Johnny Curiel, who’s restaurant group holds a Michelin star with Alma Fonda Fina. Bin 707’s Chef Josh Niernberg was a James Beard finalist in the outstanding chef category in 2025.
• The folks behind India Palace Restaurant have opened Kabab and Grill inside Avenue 19 food hall.
• Upstate Pizzeria celebrates the grand opening of its new location at 4621 Austin Bluffs Pkwy. on Sept. 11.
• Lolley’s Ice Cream dropped its fall flavor lineup last week: pumpkin pecan crumble; Snick-Or-Treat; and three vegan flavors, a pumpkin spice latte, Bibbity Buttery Scotch and green apple sorbet. They also released a pumpkin caramel crunch ice cream pie by the slice.
• Soapbox question, inspired by receiving yet another foam box with takeout food recently (which was banned in Colorado in 2024): Why can’t we mandate fully compostable packaging? Like this cool, plastic-free paper packaging with seaweed-based coatings that avoid toxic forever-chemical coatings that leech into food. Yeah, I get it: Businesses would bemoan increased costs, and lots of people could give no shits about the topic, even if told they’re harming their bodies and planet with third-party-delivered grub. Call me idealistic. I don’t care. I’m just glad someone out there has developed such a cool product. Perhaps someday it will be the norm.
Side Dish Dozen happenings
Goat Patch Brewing: Mark your calendars for our 4th annual Oktoberfest at Goat Patch–Lincoln Center, Sept. 27. And Oktoberfest at Pikes Peak Brewing, Oct. 4. At our Northgate location, catch Colorado’s first mobile bookshop via Books & Brews with Roadrunner Bookshop, Sept. 11, 3-7 p.m.
Allusion Speakeasy: Three words (and a comma): Jurassic Bar, downtown.
Odyssey Gastropub: We do happy hour “Every. Damn. Day.” 3-6 p.m. Also: Half-priced bottles of wine on Mondays. Wednesdays are for Whiskey & Wings: a shot of whiskey and nine wings, $17. Weekend brunch is 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. with bottomless mimosas.
Edelweiss: Check out our enormous German beer list. Happy hours in the Ratskeller, 4:30-6:30 p.m., Tuesdays-Saturdays. We have traditional live music 5:30-8:30 p.m., Thursdays-Sundays. Enjoy on our award-winning patio before cold weather arrives.
Kangaroo Coffee: Fall is in the air and our Apple Crisp Macchiato drink-of-the-month awaits you! Find new goodies at Kangaroo via our new collaboration with Gold Star Bakery! Find us Friday at Patriots Give Back Day and Saturday at Pawtoberfest (HSPPR) and Hopes and Holes (CYO). Next weekend we will be supporting the annual Fallen Fire Fighter Memorial and the Pikes Peak Ascent/Marathon. And we’ll be at Weidner Field Sept. 20 for another Switchbacks victory!
Jax Fish House & Oyster Bar: Join us for uniquely delicious weekly programming at Jax. Mondays: All Night Happy Hour, 4-9 p.m. Tuesdays: Industry Night, $1.25 oysters and more. Wine Wednesdays: 25-50% off select bottles. Sundays: crab boils, $45, with peel ’n eat shrimp, snow crab, andouille sausage, corn and potatoes.
Upcoming events
Sept. 13: 11th annual Harvest Celebration at Food to Power’s Hillside Hub. 1-4 p.m.; $10. Food trucks, vendors, cook-off, live music, community panels and more.
Sept. 13: Holes & Hops Cornhole & Brewfest Fundraiser at Weidner Field. 2-6 p.m.; benefits Colorado Youth Outdoors.
Sept. 13: Sober Soiree at the Meanwhile Block. 6:30-9 p.m.; $125 benefits Homeward Pikes Peak.
Sept. 14: Porchfest in the Patty Jewett neighborhood. 1-5 p.m. Live music, food trucks and kids activities.
Sept. 14: Hillside Garlic Festival at Hillside Gardens, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Sept. 19-21: Pueblo Chile & Frijole Festival.
Sept. 19: Angelo Cellars Winemaker Dinner at The Carter Payne. 6 p.m.; six courses.
Sept. 20: Korean Festival Colorado at Acacia Park. Traditional food and street snacks, K-pop performances, cultural games, local artists and vendors. 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; free.
Sept. 20: Autumn Festival at Palmer Lake’s Three Farm Girls. 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Local artisans, live music and family activities. Free.
Sept. 21: Ehret Winery and Selin Cellars wine dinner at Evergreen. Multiple seatings; five courses, $78.
Sept. 21: Paella on the Patio continues at Tapateria. Three seatings between noon and 5 p.m.; $45 includes a drink.
Sept. 23: Passport to Slovenia community wine dinner at Pizzeria Rustica. 6 p.m.; five-course, $89. Call Coaltrain at 719-475-9700 to reserve.
Sept. 23-26: Bottle sale at My Cellar Wine Bar. “Steep discounts” and “highly rated, carefully curated wines.”
Sept. 25: Tails, Tunes & Tastes at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. 6-9:30 p.m. $64.75-$74.75; unlimited small plates and two drinks.
Parting shot(s)
It was a busy week! Here’s just a few of the things I got up to:
1) A very fulfilling re-visit to Por Favor Tacos & Tragos (who I first wrote about here).
2) Documenting a special chef’s table dinner at District Elleven.
3) Hanging out with industry friends at the Pikes Peak Chapter Colorado Restaurant Association end-of-summer member gathering at The Broadmoor.
Wow! Lots of yummy things to try!! It's only 8:45am and I am already salivating!! Thank you!!