Photograph by George Sakkestad

Chutima Thongpreecha is the owner of Bankok Taste on Blossom Hill Road in Los Gatos.

Bangkok Taste offers Thai favorites to hungry diners

By Suzanne Cristallo

With a big batch of steaming Pad Thai noodles and perhaps some spicy prawns and yellow curry chicken snugly packaged in the back of her van, Judy Thongpreecha delivers lunches from her Bangkok Taste Thai restaurant to Los Gatos businesses every weekday. Local merchants and office employees, short on time but yearning for the change of pace Thai food offers, have become habituated to her fare.

Thongpreecha, who Americanized her given name of Chutima to "Judy," can make catered lunch runs within an hour by limiting the free service to businesses in Los Gatos. Takeout is also available. This allows her time to get back to her restaurant to prepare for walk-in trade.

Located across from Downey Savings on Blossom Hill Road near Harwood, Bangkok Taste is one of several stores set back from the road in an unassuming strip mall. A small sign heralding "Delicious Thai Food" is meant to catch the eye. Inside, the serene green carpeting and linens and the golden Thai dancing figures set the mood for a taste of old Siam.

A diminutive figure with stylishly bobbed black hair, Thongpreecha has welcomed lunch and dinner guests for nearly six years and--on days when her two assistants might be out ill--also taking orders, cooking and serving, clearing tables and running the cash register. Her restaurant seats 45 customers who can choose from 70 menu items. So what did she worry about most in the early years? "Describing a dish a second time when a customer asked me to repeat it," she smiles. "I was so worried about whether I said it correctly."

Thongpreecha grew up on a pineapple farm on the outskirts of Bangkok, Thailand. The United States seemed delightful but out of reach until a visiting aunt made a surprise offer to sponsor her and her father's emigration. They came first to Los Angeles in 1979. Her father worked as a chef, and she worked as a waitress while earning an associate's degree in business.

Some 14 years later, a friend spotted an ad offering the former Blossom Egg Roll Chinese restaurant for sale, and the dream Thongpreecha had been quietly nurturing of owning a restaurant with her father became a reality. But within a year, her father and partner died, leaving her to run Bangkok Taste on her own.

"It's such a challenge for me," she says. "You have to deal with different problems every day, and you have to be ready for all of it. You have to be patient with employees and customers and control your emotions. My customers are very supportive. When I look out from the kitchen and see them, it makes me feel good."

What seems to make customers feel good is the popular Pad Thai dish: pan-fried Thai noodles with prawns and eggs. It's also Thongpreecha's favorite to prepare. There are consistent orders also for ginger chicken; spicy spaghetti made Thai-style with garlic and basil; and chicken in spicy herb green curry. A complete lunch from a selection of 19 items plus soup and salad is $4.95 to $5.95. Dinner is a la carte, running from $4.95 to $9.95 per item with beef, chicken, pork, seafood, rice or noodle and vegetarian entrees. Imported Thai and domestic beers are available.

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Bangkok Taste Thai Restaurant, 1769 Blossom Hill Rd., Los Gatos. Open for lunch Mon.-Fri. 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Dinner Mon.-Thurs. 5-9:30 p.m., Fri. 5-10 p.m., Sat. (a la carte menu only) noon-10 p.m., Sun. 5-9:30 p.m. Call for Los Gatos business lunch delivery, catering or take-out: 358-2525.

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