Passionfruit Butter

When I graduated from high school, I was festooned with gifts galore, most of them food-related. Let’s be honest; when someone has a “hook” (a fixation, a fascination, a fetish), it’s a lot easier to buy for them, and my love for food fits that bill. Sure, I wouldn’t be sad to get some beautiful earrings or a fancy-schmancy camera, but anyone who’s short on ideas need only take me out to dinner or lavish me with a box of chocolates (or, as it were, oodles of Savvy Gourmet gift certificates) to win my eternal affection. I was so excited to go into Savvy Gourmet’s storefront and snatch up some nifty food gadgets or one of the classes they’d offered with the fake money I’d gotten.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I was trolling Magazine Street and saw a banner outside with the familiar colors and Papyrus typeface of SukhoThai, which has heretofore been housed in a bright yellow house on a Marigny street corner. Savvy Gourmet, after shutting its doors and leaving nothing but a dubious sign, had evacuated the premises and left its spacious location up for grabs. Now, the Marigny business has expanded closer to my neighborhood, so my friend Stella and I decided to convene there and investigate the new space.

A shallow ramp runs from the doors to a hostess station situated in the center of the dining room, whose floors are a smooth, blonde wood that brings a lot of light to the room. (It doesn’t hurt that they’ve kept those gigantic windows all along the front wall.) White globe lanterns hang from the high ceiling, and saffron-yellow booths line one wall. Because the room is so spacious, there are a lot of tables, which are scattered with plenty of room all around. Sound, I found, carries… so lower your voice a tad unless you want the whole room’s attention.

The regular dinner menu is offered during lunch hours, in addition to a page of lunch specials that are pleasantly marked down. I agonized for a bit (this past semester has been a bit of a Thai love affair for me, making it extremely difficult to settle on just one plate) and settled on the drunken noodles. The same wide egg noodles that I found a bit too sweet in the dirty noodles are much better when they’re stir-fried in spicy chili with slices of chicken. A hodgepodge of crisp veggies lends color and life to the heap of tan, and a tuft of shoestring carrots tops it off like a pom-pom, adorably. I’d heard warnings about SukhoThai’s tendency to over-spice, so when they asked me how hot I wanted my lunch, I reluctantly went with medium. I wish I’d gone for hot, because the medium didn’t give quite as much of a kick as I’d have liked.

Luckily, with an $8.95 price tag, the food and service wre good enough for me to go back — soon — and adjust accordingly. The only thing I’d add would be some salads and starters to the rest of the lunch specials; it would’ve felt strange to spend as much on a som-tum (green papaya) salad as featured on the dinner menu as on my main course. Has anybody had lunch at the Marigny SukhoThai? I’m wondering if the system’s the same there. As soon as that bit’s straightened out, SukhoThai will become a favorite spot to stop and eat with a friend when I’ve just had enough sushi and St. James.