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Thai spot a sweet deal

Chinatown has always been Chinese food central, but for more than a decade, the Chinese surrendered half the turf to Vietnamese phó restaurants. Now that the area's hot, hot, hot, everyone else is rushing to the party -- crumbling real estate be damned -- so you'll now find Mexican, Malaysian and all-American fare, and a rarity for these parts, a Thai restaurant.

Sweet Basil just opened at the corner of Maunakea and Pauahi streets, but it's already a noontime destination, thanks to its wonderful $8.95 weekday buffet. For that price, you might get a heap o' rice and a choice of two entrees elsewhere. Here, you get to try any of nine or 10 daily offerings, with everything from soup, to curries, to meat, to veggie dishes. It is fabulous. I only wish the restaurant were open at night.

The restaurant has one of the newest, cleanest looking interiors in the area, painted in woman-friendly pale pink with wood floors and Thai tapestries on the wall, bearing silver-sequined images of elephants, a symbol of royalty.

Kaimuki residents may recognize owner Thip Nguyen from her other restaurant, Columbia Inn. Here, she and her chef husband Thui Nguyen present cuisine closer to their heart and hearth. Without reservation, Thui, born and raised in Thailand, said, "We wanted to bring authentic Thai food to the island. All the other restaurants are what I consider pseudo-Thai. Whenever we had friends in town, they'd ask 'Where's the best Thai food?' and we'd say, 'At our house.' So basically, we're putting our money where our mouth is."

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GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM Thip Nguyen holds a plate of the fried spring rolls at her Maunakea Street Thai eatery, Sweet Basil.

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AS IT TURNS OUT, his word is good. I was expecting no more than a cookie-cutter hole-in-the-wall when I walked in, so was immediately surprised to see any sense of aesthetic at all. Checking the buffet, I was impressed to find bright, fresh colors -- not the muddiness usually associated with curried dishes on a buffet line. What's more, unlike many buffets that go unchecked and withered, staffers continually monitor what's gone, refresh and refill, so late-comers have all the choices available to early birds.

The buffet menu changes every day so those working in the area will be able to sample a couple of new dishes for a while, including three different curries daily. The first time I visited, the buffet featured chicken tom yum, yellow chicken curry, chili basil pork, green vegetable curry, Thai springrolls, cucumber salad, green papaya salad and cubed cantaloupe for dessert.

On sampling the line-up, I've overheard many people ask Thip why the buffet price is so low, indicating not only that the food should command a higher price, but that they'd willingly pay more! It's not often consumers invite a price hike, and that says a lot about the food quality here.

The buffet renders the a la carte menu superfluous; if only it weren't so darn tempting.

For starters, there are golden, crispy stuffed chicken wings ($7.95), fried crab claws ($6.95) and delicious pork sausage ($6.95) studded with peppers, bits of lemongrass and a touch of cilantro. This is the first place where the sausage isn't all dried up. This is one of the restaurant's few nods to Northeast Thai cooking, which is closer to Laotian cuisine.

The pan-fried salmon with red curry sauce ($10.95) is not like any other red curry dish in town. It isn't awash in soupy gravy. The reduction curry sits on the fish instead, thick, intense and emphasizing the curry's complexity. This just isn't done elsewhere because of most small restaurants' need for quick cooking techniques.

If ordering the soft-shell crab ($11.95), there's no need to try the shrimp satay ($9.50) at the same time. Both are coated with a heavy peanut sauce.

All the entrees come with a house salad of mixed baby lettuces, and a choice of white, brown or sticky rice, so you don't end up feeling like you're being nickeled and dimed for a bowl of rice.

Two dishes I didn't try, but that Thui says are worth returning for, are a Thai-style oxtail phó noodle soup ($7.95) and Bangkok crab cakes ($9.95). So don't get in my way.

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Sweet Basil 1152A Manakea St. / 545-5800 Food Service Ambience Value Hours: 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily Cost: $10 to $15 per person for lunch