Yanisa: Sick, yeah. So what is your favorite dish that somehow like represents your cultural identity?
Owner: I don’t know
Yanisa: Or favorite dish you like?
Owner: I like so many dish(es)
Yanisa: I know the feeling
Owner: Bangkok curry the one with the pineapple is a [really delicious dish] I created it from [Kang Sapparod/Kang Kua Sapparod] you know in Thailand. I love that kind of curry. I remember when I was young, my mom didn’t eat curry with coconut milk
Yanisa: Oh, why not?
Owner: Because the old fashioned they eat Kang Som, Kang Pa...all the curry dishes with no coconut milk. But I remember she said Oh today we cooked curry with coconut milk for my older brother or for me. So I’ve liked those dishes [curry with coconut milk] since then. At Bangkok Cuisine, I put that for a special menu.
Yanisa: And do customers like it?
Owner: Yes
Yanisa: Because who doesn't like coconut milk?
Owner: Yes because the pineapple is sweet sour some taste. I like it.
Yanisa: Is it spicy?
Owner: A little bit
Yanisa: Yummy. So what is one unexpected thing positive or negative that has happened to you or your staff as a result of opening your business?
Owner: Oh because we’ve been through so many years so sometime(s) it(s) hard to make everybody happy. It’s hard that way. I should try to open, I(‘ve) been trying to open the next room and then I’m not successful, I can’t, now I have to stop to do it and it’s been so much money for nothing.
Yanisa: Oh for the first restaurant..
Owner: No for that next room. I’ve been wanted to knock this wall to that room.
Yanisa: Oh, so you want to expand it
Owner: Now I cannot, yeah, because there are so many problems caused by the landlord.
Yanisa: Is that like the next building?
Owner: It the same building.
Yanisa: Oh the same building.
Owner: Next room, when you walk there you take a right...that is the room that I’ve been trying to expand, I already talked with an architect, this project is about 70 to 80% close to finish.
Yanisa: So you own that place.
Owner: That room, but this now I try to get out of that
Yanisa: Cause it’s so hard to expand the restaurant.
Owner: Yeah and to keep watching for two rooms. and plus my age and my physical not allow me anymore
Yanisa: But I think like having a tiny place is easy to take care of right?
Owner: Yeah I thought so those years, but in the middle of the process it became...
Yanisa: Complicated.
Owner: Yeah, plus I have a grandchild now, it’s exciting to rest, to be retired, and then that’s why. My age it (does) not give me a chance to, my heart, I want to do it, but I can’t.
Yanisa: Oh, So are your grandchildren in Providence?
Owner: No, in New Jersey.
Yanisa: So what about your business makes you the most proud? Or when were you most proud?
Owner: To represent Thai food. I am very very very happy because I feel that I show the real Thai food to people.
Yanisa: Could you talk about that certificate that you got from the Department of Export, Ministry of Export?
Owner: Ministry of Export. Let me take a look. This is the one. From the Department of Export promotion. Ministry of Commerce,this is awarded by Ministry of Commerce Thailand. They come here all Thai working in the Embassy and they select all Thai restaurants. They don’t just come here they go to a lot and then they taste the food, they pay, they order, they pay, they eat, and they like it, so they send this to Thai select. We continue to get Thai select from them. Going to be this is from 2014, they continue from 15 to 17, 3 more years I think.
Yanisa: So this certificate is to guarantee that you make authentic Thai food?
Owner: They said Ministry of Commerce Department, they said they want to protect Thai food, to make sure that the people who come here, go to the restaurant to the Thai restaurant have Thai food. Not just go to the Thai restaurant and have the food that is cooked, so terrible. That(s) the way they are, they just try to protect the Thai food because so many Thai restaurants...
Yanisa: Didn’t sell Thai Food. Didn’t sell Thai authentic food in a way.
Owner: Yes
Yanisa: What has been your biggest challenge in opening a restaurant?
Owner: I cannot remember what year we do the catering for wedding party (laughs). In I think, North Kingstown, it is the beautiful wedding party and it is hard to do that. And I accept to do, I did.
Yanisa: So it’s really hard.
Owner: The food is not too bad, but the way to carry and be... I never know how to do it before.
Yanisa: Also it was your first time doing the catering.
Owner: And a wedding party, and I accept that challenge (laughs)
Yanisa: But you enjoy it, right?
Owner: Yeah! I enjoy because it’s so new experience, and my customer is from Brown University. I think that time I was beginning [just started to open Sawaddee].
Yanisa: She was a Brown student?
Owner: She graduated from medicine department, and the man is… I think PHD from a very good university… what do you say it? Ivy League. I still keep the picture of the wedding at the restaurant.
Yanisa: Wow! So how many people were at that wedding?
Owner: Not more than three hundred.
Yanisa: Wow, that’s a lot.
Owner: Yeah, a lot, yeah.
Yanisa: That’s a great experience (laughs) A lot of challenges. Where do you see your business in the next five years?
Owner: I see that we are still doing great. I think Sawaddee has been here for seventeen years, so the way we cook we never change, almost everything remains the same, so it still remain to be number one. (laughs)
Yanisa: So have you ever tried to come up with new strategies to attract more customers when the competition between the same kind of business was so intense?
Owner: I am not too worried so much with the competitive. Competitive is good. It makes you try harder. It challenges you and makes you try harder. But something that… when people talking, we have to listen. But we’re not too too nervous to lose our ground...our basic concepts so I never too worried.
Yanisa: About the competition or anything
Owner: Yeah, but I try- When we have competition, we try to make it better. It good for the customer. But I don’t worry in the way that makes me lose my basic concept.
Yanisa: That’s a great philosophy
Owner: Yeah because if we are too worried and nervous, we cannot be ourselves. We have to understand that where we stand, what we are doing.
Yanisa: Still be yourself
Owner: Yeah
Yanisa: So have you thought of, you know, revising items on your menu? Like adding new stuff on the menu or removing the current dishes that do not work so much?
Owner: What do you mean?
Yanisa: Like, have you ever thought of putting new dishes on your menu?
Owner: Yeah, day by day, I try to keep putting new dish, but some customers like it, but some don’t like it. But we can see that there’s some dish that people love it, then they order those dishes on telephone.
Yanisa: So if there are some dishes that are not so popular, are you gonna remove that dish out of the menu, or no?
Owner: No. I think I have to give the chance for the people who want it, because people are different. 100 people come in...some dishes are not popular but there are still some people who love them. So if I remove it and just keep the popular one, then… not very fair.
Yanisa: I feel like you care a lot about your customers.
Owner: I am, I am. Because we sell the food. We want them to get the high quality of food and Thai food in the best quality that I can give them. And so that is the point, the main reason.
Yanisa: So we’ve come to the last question. You told me about the pan-fry stove and the wok stove. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
Owner: Yeah, I try to explain to you that all the sautee we use a wok. The stove flame is very strong. And that the way that cook all the sautee, make the food become so delicious, so... so good. Not use only the pan fry. The pan fry we can do for curry, it’s okay. But then all the sautee... say about fried rice. If you sautee fried rice, make fried rice in the wok, you can smell the fragrance.
Yanisa: Yeah, the smell is different.
Owner: Yeah, it’s different with the pan fried. The pan fried is just… no
Yanisa: Not a great smell as the...
Owner: That’s what it is. We use it for the sautee.
Yanisa: And you tell me that not a lot of Thai restaurants use two kinds of stoves, right?
Owner: Yes, because I know it from the people who come to work, and then they tell me, “You don’t need to have that stove, the wok stove, you can use only the pan fry.” And I said, “Mmmm, the taste is not good” and they said, “I see the people go, and they not complain.” But I think because a lot of the customers do not know...
Yanisa: Doesn’t know that there’s a better stove?
Owner: But some customers that I have, the customer who come here, and one day… the young man who cooks at the wok, he cooks so quick because he is lazy.
Yanisa: (laughs)
Owner: And tired, because he has to put a lot of pressure on his hands in order to cook with the wok stove.
Yanisa: Oh yeah
Owner: And then that customer is American, and she said, “Today I think your food is… the flavor is different.” (laughs) She knows it. She knows it! And she’s American. So don’t think they don’t know.
Yanisa: Don’t underestimate your customer.
Owner: (laughs) So I go back to the kitchen and asked the young man. I noticed that he was lazy. Not lazy, but he was tired. Because on the Friday’s night he has been doing so much of the sautee. And the action is so much.
Yanisa: Yeah.
Owner: They use two hands and then… yeah.
Yanisa: This is so interesting!
Owner: So they know. Don’t under…
Yanisa: ...estimate them.
Owner: estimate them.
Yanisa: Thank you so much for joining our interview.
Owner: You’re welcome.
Yanisa: And I will definitely keep coming to Sawaddee. Thank you so much.
Owner: Okay, thank you. She takes a lot of picture.
Yanisa: So, okay. So I want to interview you about your restaurant, about Sawaddee. So why did you decide to open the Thai restaurant in Providence?
Owner: Because Providence is more [a] center for everybody. More populations.
Yanisa: Okay, so why did you decide to name your restaurant as Sawaddee?
Owner: Because it’s simple. It means ‘hello.'
Yanisa: Oh, okay!
Owner: Yeah. And a lot of people want to know, what is the meaning of ‘Sawaddee,’ so every time when I say ‘hello,’ I can show them sawadee ka. And the people love it, love to know that it means ‘hello.'
Yanisa: So what do you do here each day in your restaurant?
Owner: Mostly … everything! Outside here, I check the dining room and plus make sure that the kitchen is [going] the way it’s supposed to be. Because this is a seventeen years old restaurant.
Yanisa: So your businesses has been open for seventeen years, right?
Owner: Seventeen now, yes.
Yanisa: Because the first time that I came to your restaurant, I always saw you come in and out of the kitchen all the time.
Owner: Yeah, yeah. And the kitchen is—I’m not too, too worried, because we have the chef from Thailand that come to work regularly, but I am the top of that. I try to make sure that everything is [going] on the direction that we want it, and the basic way we want to cook a little Thai food for the people. And I want the people [to] know that Thai food is like this. Because sometimes when I went to New York or another state or even in this state, I’m looking for the Thai restaurant, and I found it and—this is not [a] Thai restaurant. And it’s amazing. And even sometimes I found [them] from the Yellow Pages where they were advertising, and I thought, ‘It is a Thai restaurant!’ but then I talked to someone who answered the phone, they cannot tell—I can see that it’s not Thai food.
Yanisa: So they don’t speak in Thai at all?
Owner: Not at all. And plus, when we talk about the food, it’s zero. They don’t know anything.
Yanisa: Oh. So they’re not even from Thailand.
Owner: I don’t know, because right now I have some [waiters] that cannot speak Thai, too. But my food is very Thai food. I don’t know. I don’t know what to say. But the major problem is, the kitchen [has] to cook Thai food. Even we have someone out here that cannot speak Thai.
Yanisa: Oh, okay. So the most important thing is to have Thai food.
Owner: That we cook Thai, authentic Thai food.
Yanisa: Oh, okay. So that leads to the question—how did you decide your menu?
Owner: Menu. My first restaurant is named Bangkok Cuisine in Warwick, 1982 Warwick Avenue. Many years ago, maybe twenty something, twenty one years ago. So I’ve been [having] those menu[s], and I use those menu[s] to develop, day by day, to use in here. And I try to create more, more—because Thai food is so many, many, many, many [choices...she wants to say that there are many different dishes in Thai food]. The one that you see in this menu is just [a] small part of Thailand, part of Thai food. And even when I was young, my mom cooked Thai food and I’d sit down and see her or talk to her or eat with her—we have so plenty, plenty Thai food.
Yanisa: So you mention your menu is a small portion of the entire Thai food, yeah?
Owner: Yeah, yeah.
Yanisa: How did you decide to take that small portion? Why not the other portions?
Owner: We see by whether the customers love it. [In the] beginning, I might put the menu out on the table, in the paper, with a picture like this.I wait for a while and add more special items on the menu with the picture and explanation. And then after two or three months—I put out three of them, and then the one that’s the most popular, we know that because we don’t even put [it] in the big menu, but the people order by telephone or by delivery. It means, after they eat, they love it so much and then they'll memorize and then they order by telephone. That is amazing me that, oh, they must love this one.
Yanisa: Oh, so that is not even on the big menu?
Owner: No, not yet. It’s on a paper like this—a special—
Yanisa: Oh, on a table like this. That’s interesting. So you started to do a lot of your menu from looking at your customer’s feedback.
Owner: Yes. And plus, the menu from Bangkok Cuisine. That we have it.
Yanisa: So why did you change from Bangkok Cuisine to Sawaddee?
Owner: Oh, I sold Bangkok Cuisine. Bangkok Cuisine is the first Thai restaurant in Rhode Island. At the time that it was open, Bangkok Cuisine—no Thai restaurants in here. And then after that, for a year or something, a lot of Thai restaurants start to come out.
Yanisa: Wow, you’re the first one.
Owner: Yes, we had the first Thai restaurant. And that’s why the Providence Journal [wrote] the review about us. Why Bangkok Cuisine—why Thai food [was] born in the same building with the pizza. It was the name [she mentioned the name of the Italian pizza restaurant that was open in the same building with Bangkok Cuisine...not sure of the name] of Italy pizza. Because I have no experience and I have no idea that in Warwick, it’s too far. And that’s why I start[ed] again in Providence, because everybody complained about [having] to drive over the bridge to Warwick for Bangkok Cuisine. Then I sold Bangkok Cuisine to a family of Chinese people and now it’s named Jade Dragon. At 1982 Warwick Avenue.
Yanisa: So the Chinese family make[s] the Chinese food, so it’s called Jade Dragon? Oh, that’s interesting.
Owner: And right now, that is the answer of why I opened in Providence. I sold that one and came back to be in nursing, to work as a nurse. Because I’m originally a registered nurse from Thailand.
Yanisa: Oh! So, after you sold Bangkok Cuisine and you became a nurse again—
Owner: Not became, I was a nurse. So I come back to practice, to work as a registered nurse two days a week, something like that. And when I had Bangkok Cuisine, it just [was] so brand new [of an] experience for me. So after a while—that is too much for a person who never ran a restaurant. It’s about four [four times] bigger than this.
Yanisa: So you were back to work as a nurse, and how long after that did you decide to open this restaurant?
Owner: Oh, maybe a couple years. And then I found this restaurant over here and then I bought it, and I think it’s small, and at that time, my children [were] in high school. So I thought, this is going to be for the children—for my children’s kitchen, to eat. [laughs] And that is mostly the reason. And plus, I understand that in this area, the population that eats Thai food is more than in Warwick at that time, at that point.
Yanisa: So when you bought the restaurant, what kind of restaurant was that?
Owner: It was a Thai restaurant. But the owner was so sick, and she lived in New York. So someone [took] care of her, and the businesses [kept] going under.
Yanisa: So you took over for her?
Owner: Yeah. And her business was no good because the owner never [came] here, she [was] so sick. And she went back to Thailand with her husband.
Yanisa: Oh, she’s from Thailand!
Owner: Yeah, she’s a teacher, I think.
Yanisa: Oh, interesting!
Owner: Yeah. And she was so sick.
Yanisa: Oh. Oh, okay.
Owner: And then she want[ed] to sell it, her husband want[ed] to sell it. So I call. I come here to have a meal with my friend, Professor Spalding, and he told me, ‘oh, [Sue], I’m gonna take you to the Thai restaurant, it’s so cute.’ And so I come here and I like it right away. It’s so tiny. No, but I like it. Then, they did not even put the sign on that they wanted to sell. I tried to get in touch with the owners.
Yanisa: Ah, and then you got the restaurant.
Owner: Yeah. But it’s not easy to get in touch with them because they did not put the sign up at that time. And then the lady who owned the restaurant was so sick.
Yanisa: Oh
Owner: Not great restaurant so they had to try to get rid of the restaurant so..
