Local Flavor

If It's Thursday, This Must Be the Thai Kitchen
Stay tuned as Deb and Marian eat their way through the menu at an out-of-the-way Thai restaurant in Columbia County.

by Deb Barshafsky

Louise and Perry retired in 2001. The place is now called Szechuan Garden. You've seen it-the bright blue building sandwiched between Morelia's Mexican restaurant and the empty lot that once was home to the Western Sizzlin'.

I continued to patronize "the garden" after Louise and Perry retired, but the experience was never quite the same. The tails on Louise's Special Shrimp were never as crunchy and Ants Climbing Tree, my favorite dish of rice noodles with minced pork, eventually disappeared from the menu. I took solace in knowing that Louise was still out there somewhere, preparing special meals for her friends and family. This past summer, Louise lost her long battle with cancer, her family lost its beloved matriarch and Augusta lost the treasure that was Louise's cooking.

I know I've found a great little spot when my friends and family inquire disbelievingly, "You eat there?" That's the way it was with China Garden in the late 1990s. To be sure, the building was not the most impressive Asian restaurant I've ever frequented. Perched just feet from Walton Way, the rush of westbound traffic rattled the plate glass windows. And, no, you would find none of the fountains and fish tanks of the fancier Asian restaurants like Formosa and Shangri La-the top two Chinese restaurants in this year's Best of Augusta poll.

What China Garden offered was something less tangible but infinitely more appealing to a foodcentric soul like myself. A more personal and authentic eating experience. A visit with family, not simply a transaction involving good food and money.

I make an annual pilgrimage to Washington, D.C., for the sole purpose of eating unusual Asian food in the kinds of idiosyncratic restaurants that I find so appealing. I stay in my favorite boutique hotel, do a little shopping, but spend the bulk of my time trolling the nation's capital in search of Asian fare I can't get here at home, like the spring ginger salad and mango pork at Burma, a little walk up dive in Chinatown, or the noodles at Chinatown Express-hand stretched by the chef just moments before they are plunged into your hot pot.

The problem? My craving, like the heat of an Augusta summer, is relentless. While I haven't jettisoned my jet setting, I supplement my distant dining with adventures in what I call Augusta's Asian Underground-the lesser known and sometimes nearly unknown Asian restaurants that feature offerings more exotic than kung pao chicken and mu shu pork.

To be sure, my adventures are hit or miss. This summer, in my travels around Augusta in search of unusual Chinese fare, I drove what felt like 40 minutes to Barton Chapel Road to discover what was so delectable about the Yummy Yummy Chinese Restaurant. It had been shuttered. Apparently not as yummy as the owners thought. On the way, though, I passed Golden Gate, a restaurant with an undeniable architectural draw-Spanish-style arches, a modified gambrel roof and a makeshift pagoda attached to the front. Definitely worth the trip.

Augusta's Yellow Pages abound with Chinese restaurants-from Bamboo Garden to the aforementioned Yummy Yummy. So many, in fact, that I wonder when we're going to see an establishment called AAA Chinese Buffet or simply A Chinese Restaurant. In "Far East Meets Deep South," an article that appeared in the December/ January 1997-98 issue of Augusta Magazine, my fellow columnist, David Foster, wrote that "by the early 20th century, Augusta had one of the largest and most successful Chinese communities in the United States and one of the few well-defined Chinese communities in the South." Perhaps the concentration of Chinese restaurants in Augusta is a reflection of that historical tidbit.

What we have less of in our fair city are the other flavors of the Orient - the salty, sweet, sour, bitter and hot of Thai food, and the garlicky heat of Korean dishes. Oh, they're out there. You just have to work a little harder to find them. My two current favorites are Arirang, the Korean restaurant on Deans Bridge Road, and the Thai Kitchen, a scrumptious little spot in Columbia County.

Now, be warned, the Arirang is an establishment whose exterior doesn't exactly scream "atmosphere." But beneath the curiously shaped siding front and the graffiti on the rear of the building (does that really say ZESTFULLY CLEAN?) is a diner - a shiny metallic capsule that makes you feel you should be ordering eggs over easy with corn beef hash instead of nak ji bokum (stir-fried octopus with vegetables) or jab chae bab (stir-fried noodles with vegetables and beef).

The first time I visited, I was overwhelmed by the menu options - everything from bi bim bop (vegetables with rice) to ttok mandukuk (rice cake and dumpling soup). Arirang serves standard dishes known to people with even a nodding acquaintance with Korean food - yakki man du (fried dumplings with minced pork) and bul go gi (thin strips of fiery beef), for example. But Arirang also serves more unusual items involving chopped roast octopus and squid. And your meal is served with eight amazing sides dishes-small tastes of pickled, marinated and fermented things like sesame broccoli, cabbage and sausage, kim chee, cucumbers, sprouts, hijiki and slices of a vibrant yellow vegetable that I am unable to identify but devour nonetheless. I know that's only seven. Forgive me - I'm overstimulated just thinking about it and can't recall the eighth wonder of Arirang's world of chop (that's the Korean term for side dish).

The place I've been hanging my hat every Thursday evening since early August is the Thai Kitchen. Nestled between Kroger and a pack-and-mail store in a Columbia County strip mall, the Thai Kitchen is certainly unobtrusive. The decorations are sparse and the lighting is bright, but this place has stolen my culinary heart. With dishes like Kiss Me Chicken (chicken with garlic and ground pepper in sherry wine) and Lovely Sweet Honey Bunch (shrimp with tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, and red and green peppers), how could you not be smitten?

Perhaps folks in Martinez and Evans know well the pleasures to be found here, but I felt like Columbus discovering the new world.

Our waitress on that first visit (and every visit thereafter) is Crystal - "like a chandelier," she says waving her hands as if she were tinkling the prisms. Marian wants to know her Thai name. It is Chitra-it means forget-me-not, she says. Marian and I tell Chitra that we intend to eat everything on the menu - from the Hither and Thither Chicken Wings to the pineapple stuffed rambutans. Not on this night - but over the coming months. I wonder if we'll get a prize when we're finished. Chitra lifts her eyebrows in delight and tells us, "You eat everything then fried bananas my treat."

In our first three weeks, we check off 15 items. We're strong out of the gate in the curry section. Ah, the coconut milk. Ah, the kaffir lime leaves. The owner, Noppadon ("Don") Sowsawat, is aware of our quest and informs us that he no longer serves the deep fried whole fish. But he offers to make a papaya salad, which is not on the menu, for our next visit. Don is a handsome and soft spoken man - quite a foil to the unbridled enthusiasm and impish good humor of our waitress, Chitra. Don's wife, Maliwan, is responsible for the magic that emerges from the kitchen.

For a few hours every Thursday night, I'm not in a strip mall restaurant in Columbia County. I'm in Mr. Sowsawat's kitchen on a Bangkok sidestreet-enthralled by Chitra's sing-song announcements of every dish she brings to the table...tom yam goong, gaeang kiew waan, pad sie ewwwwwww (emphasis mine).

It means forget-me-not, she says. Not a chance, Chitra. See you again next Thursday.