Saturday at Sookk

Southeast Asian street food comes to Broadway and 103rd Street

For days I'd watched the workers carting in wood and hammering away, as I passed by on Broadway in the afternoons. Finally they were hanging dozens of lacy lanterns from the ceiling, brass bells in the entraceway and covering one wall with bolts of jewel-toned silks. When the chairs and tables arrived and a sign bearing the mysterious name, "Sookk," was hoisted over the front window, I knew we had a quirky new restaurant in the neighborhood.

Good! I thought. Or... possibly good. That Saturday evening I suggested to my family that we check it out.

Around 8:00 p.m., Frank, Marina and I wandered down Broadway to 103rd Street, planning to poke our heads into the new eatery and get a bite. Instead we found a line out the door and a host announcing we'd have a 45-minute wait. Say what?

Yes, a 45-minute wait. This is on the Upper West Side, north of 96th Street, near the intersection that once made the Village Voice list of the ten worst street corners in Manhattan. This is the former neighborhood of welfare hotels, curbside hookers and nodding junkies--the neighborhood dubbed "Manhattan Valley," in the 1970s, when community self-help groups made a valiant but futile effort to spruce up its image.

Now European tourists are wheeling their luggage up Broadway to the Marrakech Hotel, where velvet ropes separate them from the neighborhood locals and bouncers in black talk into matching mouthpieces. The drop of the dollar against the euro has helped bring about the chic-ification of the neighborhood.

How times do change. But, since we are long-term neighborhood residents, forty-five minute waits at restaurants are not yet part of our mental geography. Now if you'd asked us to stand that long in a bank line or at the post office, we would have barely raised an eyebrow. But at a restaurant?

We walked out of Sookk and further down the street to Mama Mexico, where we were squeezed in immediately between beer-drinking Columbia students and hyped-up mariachis.

Talk about neighborhood success stories! Even my fifteen-year-old daughter Marina can remember back to the days when Mama Mexico was the sweet, little hole-in-the wall run by the friendly family from Puebla.

Now it has expanded three-fold and is a non-stop party place. Afraid of ending up with a $100 check to pay and possibly a platter of mole poblano on our heads, we rarely eat there anymore. But we still love to stare through its windows at the people, the murals and the brightly-colored, lamps that glow like magic talismans, hanging from the leaf-green ceiling.

Today Mama Mexico's guacamole is still made table-side and tastes as good as any we've had in the motherland. Due to their impressive square footage--and despite the hoards who are increasingly drawn there--you can still get a table pretty quickly. Thank you, Big New Mama, for the little mercies!

But the truth is, I was still cogitating about Sookk, the lanterns and the bolts of silk. On its menu, Sookk advertised Bangkok-style street food, which piqued my curiosity. There had to be some way to circumvent this 45-minute thing. Then a light bulb went off.

"I've got it. Next weekend we can make a reservation!" I exclaimed.

"Good thinking, mom," said my sarcastic daughter.

The following week we did something we have never done for any eating establishment north of 96th Street. We picked up the phone and reserved a table. That evening, we hustled down Broadway, careful to arrive at Sookk at the exact and appointed hour.

When we stepped inside, we were wowed by the romance of the place. The hanging lanterns glimmered with a soft light and on the back wall, the bolts of colored silk evoked a fabric merchant's shop. At any minute, I expected, a fortune teller would appear with a Ouija board.

"We've got a reservation for three," I told the host.

He motioned us to a tiny table right by the door, where a group of impatient patrons was hovering, waiting to be seated.

"There are three of us, not two," I clarified.

"That's your table," he said and started to turn away.

In the back, I could see, the staff was clearing a table for four.

"Could we have that table in the back?" I asked.

"No. We're going to seat two groups of two there," he told me and walked off.

Reluctantly, we settled ourselves into the chairs at the front table... or Frank and I did. Marina was given an eight-inch-wide stool to balance on.

"Let's see if we can get you a real chair," I said, glancing nervously at the crowd of customers waiting just behind her.

"Mom," said Marina, putting her hand on my shoulder, "I'm fine. Chill out, and imagine you're in Chinatown."

OK. Point taken. Some cultural flexibility was probably called for. I would henceforth imagine myself in Chinatown, or--better yet--in Yaowarat, the two-hundred-year-old Bangkok neighborhood where, according to our menu, hundreds of street food vendors converge every night to hawk an eclectic array of delicacies that meld influences from Thai, Szechuan and Cantonese cooking.

I closed my eyes and tried to summon up the scene: the outdoor stalls, lit by bare bulbs, the crowds pressing in from all directions, the cooks working over their woks, above the flicker of yellow and blue flames, meat and seafood sizzling, the smells of garlic, cumin, coconut, ginger and basil.

"So," said Frank, interrupting my revery. "Who's ready to order?"

After some negotiations, we settled on three starters--"This place should be good at finger food," I theorized--and one entree, all to share. Since they didn't have a liquor license, Frank ran across the street to the Korean deli to get bottles of Heineken. Marina ordered a tall mango iced tea.

All around us, patrons sat elbow-to-elbow at little tables, chattering in the dim light. There were some young, well-dressed Europeans, a couple of Columbia grad students, and a number of affluent-looking Asians, some in small family groups. Marina seemed to be the only one under twenty in the crowd.

The first dish to arrive was fried coconut-crusted calamari, ordered to appease Frank, who has never been known to pass up calamari on any menu, anywhere in the world.

"It's rubbery... but good," said Marina, diplomatically. "Though it's hard to taste the coconut."

I said nothing, having long ago given up on my efforts to convince my husband that there is no point in ordering calamari in America. While it may be partly the fault of our cooks that so much rubbery calamari is served on these shores, I suspect it is also the fault of our environmentally-protective fishing laws. Good for the sea creatures, perhaps, but not necessarily for the diners. At Sookk, I dipped the calamari in the sweet red chili sauce, which made it better.

Next to arrive was a patty of steamed sticky rice stuffed with soy beans, chestnuts, mushrooms and pork and folded up in bamboo leaves--the Thai version of a tamale. This was something our waiter had especially recommended, but I was not impressed. We had fun unwrapping the "package" and poking at the rice mixture with our chopsticks, but it was bland and starchy. An inauspicious start, I thought.

Marina had lobbied for golden fritters, an assortment that included chicken and shrimp dumplings, shitake spring rolls, batter-fried shrimp and sesame tofu, served with peanut-chili sauce. This turned out to be the most popular dish of the evening. I'm not usually a spring roll fan, but had to agree the shitake spring rolls had a light, crisp texture and lovely, subtle flavor. The fried tofu squares were browned on the outside and delicious, especially when dipped in the peanut-chili sauce. We devoured everything on the plate within minutes.

By now every inch of our tiny table was piled with teetering stacks of plates. Finally I managed to hand them off to the waiter. He was a cute guy with a winning smile. But Marina had to remind him three times that she wanted more water.

Although the young staff looks stunning, with their sleek, dark hair and intensely orange t-shirts, there is something seriously wrong with the service. They are disorganized and inattentive and treat the customers like an afterthought. But then again, what would you expect from a restaurant modeled on a street fair?

Our main course finally arrived: a chicken pumpkin curry, simmered in coconut milk with kaffir lime leaves and basil. I had imagined something with surprising flavors and textures. While the sauce was flavorful, the pumpkin was reminiscent of potato--dense and uninspiring.

"I'm still hungry," said Marina, as our waiter cleared away the last dish. So we perused the dessert menu and agreed to share the most exotic offering, said to be a popular wedding dish: warm, mashed taro cake topped with ginkgos, red dates and lotus seeds.

Frank and Marina pronounced it delicious and I agreed. Served in a cinnamon-spiced, coconut milk sauce, the confection was rich and sweet and presented a lovely variety of textures and flavors. It was, however, one more serving of starch than we needed on this particular night. Bad ordering on our part. Next time, we agreed, we'd choose the green tea ice cream for dessert and order the taro cake wedding delicacy as take-out.

The Asian family that had been sitting next to us paid their bill and got ready to leave. At the door, several couples looked expectantly at our tables. It was time for us to call it a night.

We were out the door--but not before laying out close to $60, including tax and tip. A bit steep for your run-of-the-mill West Side family, but not bad for those neighborhood stock and bond traders who still have their jobs intact... and a steal for dollar-mad European tourists. $60--I wonder what the street vendors in Bangkok would think of that!

"That was fun," said Marina, as we headed back up Broadway. "I'd like to eat there again, sometime."

"Sure," agreed Frank, who is always game when it comes to restaurants. "I'd be willing to give it another try."

As for me, I was lost in thought. I was developing an idea for an even newer and chic-er neighborhood restaurant. This one would be further uptown--say around 155th street.

Why not use the street fair theme and go all the way with it? We would rent space in an empty Harlem warehouse and fill it with stalls and an international assortment of street food vendors. To increase the profit margins and make it more authentic, we'd dispense with furniture all together and avoid hiring waiters. The diners could wander from one "food station" to another. We'd put burley bouncers at the door and a velvet rope outside, where people could line up. And if the line got too long, we'd just tell them to call for reservations-- three weeks in advance.