Sawasee Thai Restaurant is in St. Elmo. Click to enlarge all our photos.
photo by Janet Wilson
Wayne and I just made our first trip to the recently opened Sawasdee Thai Restaurant located at 4008 St. Elmo Ave. It sits in the center triangle between Tennessee and St. Elmo Avenues. I’m glad that St. Elmo is becoming revitalized with new restaurants – I spent the first four years of my life there and my Mother grew up just a few blocks from where Sawasdee is located. According to the menu, Sawasdee is Thai for “hello”.
When you step inside the front door, it is a little crowded if others are waiting. There are chairs for people who are waiting for a table, but it doesn’t leave much standing room. We were a little surprised to not see any Thai or Asian servers, adding a bit of authenticity to the place. Our server was very good about explaining items to us, but they do leave out the little “personalized” service items such as unfolding your napkin and handing it to you as other Thai service we have experienced.
The inside of the restaurant has a very pleasing appearance with Thai ornamentation. We also noticed several bamboo plants, which have become quite popular. The tables are wrought iron with fish carvings covered by a glass top. Since it isn’t a huge restaurant, we thought that might contribute to the fact that it was quite noisy.
The menus are nice, fabric-covered, with a little latch on the front – but difficult to read. We were seated at the back table on the platform that holds two tables and the light was very low, plus the menus have these fairly dark figures (matching the large ones on the outside as you enter) on them. It was very difficult to read the dark print that appears on top of the dark figures. I finally dug out a magnifying glass to see if that would help.
When our server arrived to take our order, he suggested an appetizer due to the fact that everything is prepared “to order” and it would probably take at least thirty minutes for our plates to arrive. We found this to be more than true. Our appetizer order was taken at four minutes after our arrival and my soup (Tom Kha Gai, $3.25), arrived at twenty-eight minutes, while Wayne’s appetizer of Satay Gai ($3.00) arrived at thirty-five minutes. It was about this same time that the table of four sitting directly behind us decided to leave. We had been there for forty minutes and they had already ordered prior to our arrival. They asked for their meals to be packaged in “to go” boxes because their food had still not arrived and they would not have time to eat since they had to be somewhere in ten minutes.
I enjoyed my soup as it was quite tasty, but seemed to be more mushrooms than chicken. It is also a tad more sour than I am used to – not that it was a bad taste, because it wasn’t. It was delicious, just not exactly as I have eaten before. Wayne’s Satay consisted of two skewers of chicken – also quite different than the Satay we are used to having which is wrapped in rice paper. Since there didn’t appear to be much preparation, other than cooking the Satay, I was surprised it took thirty-five minutes.
For my entrée, I ordered the “F9”, Pud Kao pote oon – This is your choice of Chicken or Pork sautéed with baby corns, bamboo shoots, and green onions for $7. I found that the Chicken in both my soup and my entrée were much smaller than I am used to (almost to the point of not being able to see it).
Wayne ordered “F11”, Pud Khe Maa with Chicken sautéed with rice noodles, broccoli, bamboo shoots, baby corns, mushrooms, cabbage, carrots and chilies ($7.50). He ordered it with four peppers and found it to be quite warm – but delicious.
We felt that the food was good and very fresh and think this restaurant should do quite well if they can get people in to just try it out. I have had many people say to me “I don’t like Thai” – but usually I find out they’ve never tried it. We feel that Sawasdee is definitely worth a visit – but make sure it is not a night when you have plans and will be in a hurry. If you are a regular visitor to the other two Thai restaurants in town, you will find that some of the items are prepared differently here – but if everyone prepared their food the same way, there would be no reason to try new places. Also, the prices are very reasonable.
I will say that I do prefer my more familiar Thai Tea – it seems to be a heavier texture, less water-flavor than the Sawasdee one.
Hours for Sawasdee: Tuesday through Saturday lunch is served from 11:00 AM until 2:30 PM and on Sunday from 12:00 PM until 3:00 PM; Dinner is served Tuesday through Thursday from 5:00 PM until 9:00 PM; Friday and Saturday until 9:30 PM and on Sunday until 8:00 PM. Also on Friday, Sawasdee has a lunch buffet (which would give you the opportunity to try different items in order to find what you really like). They are closed on Mondays.
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