Supannee House of Thai

Yesterday Bert and I were in the Shelter Island area for a meeting which ran longer than expected. It was already 1 pm and I was getting antsy for lunch, which was down the street and around the corner...

Supannee House of Thai is located at a Cape Cod looking strip mall on the corner of Scott St. and Shelter Island Drive.

They have their own lot but what sucked was that all of the parking here was timed green spaces (either 5 minutes or 30 minutes) so we ended up doing street parking...

Bert saw this sign and immediately knew he wanted to have it. Yes, it was $20 but there were two kinds of crab!

The restaurant is named after Supannee House, the chef and co-owner, who along with her husband Alec and her sister run this "farm to table" Thai restaurant. I really liked the color scheme (moss green, grey and natural rattan), the clean and modern lines of the decor and the attentive service here. After reading Kirk's post on Supannee a few months ago (he had me as "Issan sausage), I knew we had to give this place a try...



We ordered three things to share, the Crab Pad Thai special, the Thai Sausage and the Ginger Pork Salad (Nam soht). There was also a page of their Seafood and House specials. In fact, we saw a table being served an impressive looking plate of whole fried fish, which we later found was 'rockfish'. Bert and I resolved to try that for a future visit...

As mentioned earlier, the restaurant was "farm to table" and the higher prices here reflect this. It was cool knowing that all of the vegetables and herbs served here were grown in their own :urban farms and gardens".



I noticed woven mats on their ceilings. Very nice detail!

Our drinks - my lemongrass iced tea and Bert's iced coffee. I normally don't get drinks, but after knowing they grew their own herbs, wanted to try this and OMG, was this good! I also liked that they served my tea with simple syrup which made for a smoother tea (no grainy undissolved sugar granules to deal with). Bert's iced coffee was probably one of the best versions of Thai iced coffee we've had. We could really taste the coffee. Most of the time, it's watered down with tons of ice and too much cream. This was perfect.


The Thai sausage came out first...This was quite fragrant, plump and nestled atop a bed of fresh lettuce. The accoutrements were chopped Thai chilies, peanuts and very fresh slivered ginger. When sliced, we could see all of the fresh ingredients (lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves).



The other dishes were the Sen Chan Pad Poo (yes, I know, ha ha, but this was the Crab Pad Thai) and the Nam Soht (pork and ginger salad). They were both fantastic. The noodles had a generous amout of stone crab meat within the dish and a fried soft shell crab on top. The flavors in the pork salad were very fresh. It really does make a difference having the best possible ingredients. We had a chicken larb the night before at a local Thai place and it was just not even close to this.






Bert and I were both happy with our choices and plan to do a future revisit. Some friends from out of town are coming for a conference in the area and this would be the perfect excuse place to have dinner!

Who else went to Supannee House of Thai?
It was Kirk's post last summer that piqued my interest. He had me at Issan sausage!

Also reviewed by: sandiegorestarants.com, thrillist (which has a hilarious reference to Michael Phelps' bong), tripadvisor, and lastly, a blogger named Alan Mizuki of the blog outlastnight. He went two years ago and had the Lady Fingers appetizer (OMG, I want to try that net time!) along with his lunch special. The appetizer was much more exciting to see...

I also found a review (mostly negative) from the OBRag that really opened up a can of worms (just see the back and forth in the comments, geez)! I hope that reviewer went back and gave the restaurant another shot.

Supannee House of Thai
2907 Shelter Island Dr.
San Diego, CA 92106
(619) 795-8424

sdthai.com

Can't wait to go here again to try their fried rock fish!