Little Serow

This is not the coconut milk Thai from the country's central region, but the smokey, porky, sweet-sour-spicy cuisine from the mountainous terrain of the northeast. Our server at Johnny Monis's Little Serow explained this to us as we devoured a succession of seven courses on the prix fixe menu, rattling off the differences in climate and geography and how that affected the food in each region.

Four of us made the pilgrimage to the spinoff from Monis's nouvelle Greek fancy dining place Komi, which we managed to enjoy a couple of times before it rocketed to fame as one of the top restaurants in the country and became impossible to get into. We arrived at 4:50 to take our place in line and put our names in when the restaurant opened at 5:30. We weren't the first ones and in fact were among the last to get some of the 28 places available in the first seating, seated side by side along a white counter.

Decor is funky (Thai funky?), with the interior painted an aqua green, tables at bar-stool height, drinks kept cold in a utility sink and flat screens hidden in a file cabinet.

We started with a drink and the fried pork rinds with chile sauce and salad vegetables (nam prit narohk het). The sauce was very hot and the pork rinds were light as air. I had one of the vermouths to start with, the Perucchi Gran Reserva from Spain.

The next two dishes -- all were served "family style" for each couple -- came together with some rice. There was a dish with catfish, dried shrimp and mango (yum mamuang pla muek), which had a funny fish-sauce flavor (don't get me wrong, I liked it). The second dish featured pork (not listed in the decidedly sketchy descriptions on the menu) along with sour fruit, palm sugar and shrimp paste (ma hur). As with all the dishes in the menu, these braced you with new, exciting and unusual flavors. There were hints of the familiar cilantro and Thai basil and always a suggestion of heat from chile, but there were new things, literally, for this Westerner and Thai food novice, indescribable.

The next dish, gai laap ching mai, combining chicken and chicken livers, offered more familiar flavors, a taste of pate with some exotic seasoning. Our companions at dinner, who cook Thai at home, noted approvingly, "Lots of chopping going on in the kitchen." This was followed by a crispy rice and sour pork dish (naem khao tod - no photo) that upped the heat a bit and gave us some more of that marvelous pork flavor.

To my taste, the next dish of greens, salted fish and egg (gai lan bla kem), was even hotter, though it was supposed to bring us down again. It had us reaching the sticky rice and sniffling but made you feel like you'd been to Thailand.

The final course brought us back to more familiar terrain with pork ribs marinated in mehkong whiskey and grilled to falling-off-the bone tender (si krong muu). Something of a piece de resistance it was a useful bridge back to U.S. of A.

A fun place with great food and excellent service -- what's not to like. I'm not sure how often I'll like leaving at 4:30 to stand in line for dinner and the service seemed at times a trifle rushed, especially when they set out the clean plates and silverware for the next seating on the back counter was we polished off our ribs. But how should you cope with fame? At Komi, you can only get a reservation if you call the minute they open for  booking 30 days in advance. How long can you let guests linger when you've already booked two more seatings? Sometimes it's worth the trouble and this is one of those instances.