Natalie and Rod
Asia Nine’s Yin and Yang
The key to a good relationship is being able to work well together. That’s a given….but being able to work well on a 24/7 basis? That’s a rarity. However Asia Nine’s owners, Nuthinepan Tantivejakul (just call her Natalie) and her husband Boonrod Yotmanee (just call him “Chef Rod”), are a marriage made in culinary heaven.
Both from Thailand, they didn’t meet until recently. Born and raised in Bangkok, Natalie moved to Canada to study economics and marketing at the University of Toronto. Knowing she needed an edge to get a good job in Thailand, she took the next step in her education and attended the University of Maryland to get her MBA in Finance. However, her original plans to become a financial analyst slowly started to change with a side job in a restaurant called Tara Thai. After Tara Thai, Natalie moved on to a position as manager at Neisha Thai and fully committed her passion to restaurants when her supportive boss offered her a green card. Always up for the next challenge, Natalie seriously started to consider opening up a restaurant of her own…
As the baby of a large family in Nakornsithummarat, Rod learned to cook at an early age and developed a love for gastro-culture. However, he did not view a future in cooking as realistic and attended school in Thailand for a degree in accounting. After graduating, Rod knew that numbers weren’t his thing. So he packed up and joined family members in a move to The States. He soon rekindled his passion for the culinary world as he helped his sister to start a restaurant in Virginia, known as Thai Café. He then moved on to become a cook in Thai Shirlington, but his next career move would set his sails towards a future as a chef, a restaurateur and a future with Natalie…
Around the same time that Natalie opened Rice ‘n’ Spice in Alexandria, VA in 2002, Rod started looking for the next step in his culinary career. 2 years into Rice ‘n’ Spice’s inaugural year, Natalie hired a new chef – Chef Rod, and gained an asset in the kitchen as well as a new love in her life.
Natalie considers the Rice ‘n’ Spice concept to be her greatest accomplishment. However, after 6 successful years running and 4 flourishing years of marriage, she and Rod decided they were ready to move on to the next level… And Asia Nine was born.
