Rachel White, Casey Wolf, Andrew Wolter, and Celine Yeh interviewed Somsanith “Nit” Sithisack of 1st of Thai in Faribault, Minnesota.


My name is Somsanith Sithisack, my age is 25, and my current occupation is, I would say, manager.  I just don’t like the title so I just “work for my dad”, that’s all I say.

Back in 1985, my mom fled to Thailand to a concentration camp and that’s where she met my father and had me there so I was born in a concentration camp.  About a month later, they got our visas to come to America, so that’s when we came to America, in ’85.  And ever since then, my father’s been working in the restaurant business for a long time, not owning one but just working as a dishwasher, cooking and all that.  And in 2002-3 or so, he partnered up with another couple, a Thai and American couple, to open up a restaurant in Albertville. But in 2005, Plymouth, Minnesota was our next location that we opened up at.  Five years later the economy kind of went sour and we decided to move out here to [Faribault], which was a better location, I think.  We knew the owner of this little strip mall, so I don’t think there’s a Thai restaurant within a 20 mile radius.  There’s a lot of competition in the Cities, but out here, there’s not really much competition.  It gets good business.

[My dad’s been cooking] since, I can’t remember way back in the 90’s. The last I remember is when we were living in the projects on the north side…I just remember him never being home ‘cause he was so much at work. There was actually a Vietnamese restaurant that he worked at when he first came in. Then he kind of branched out to a Chinese restaurant. That’s where he met the owner of this little strip mall because they were business partners and they decided to open up a Thai restaurant ‘cause my dad’s Laos and Thai. This is the first time that me and my dad have ever seen each other everyday. I’ve never seen him this much in my twenty five years, because he was always working.

I guess he was [cooking] ever since he was little. ‘Cause over there, you know, when you grow up your parents make you cook, help cook around the house because over in Laos there’s kids who start at a very young age ‘cause there’s nothing else to do. You go to school, you come home, you help cook at the house ‘cause they have rice fields out there and you get dirty doing the rice fields and all that stuff. There’s not really a school to go to to learn, you learn it all from your parents and stuff like that. That’s why I feel like I came to America. My parents, they work so much that they barely have a home to kinda show us how to cook rice and cook the main dishes and stuff like that. I don’t know how to cook rice, I know how to cook sticky rice and regular jasmine rice, when you get into stuff like spices and all that, I just can’t. I can’t do it.  I like it better when someone else cooks a meal for me, ‘cause I know what I put in it might be too much.  I’m not that picky of an eater, but I always eat off my moms plate for some reason.

When I was in high school, there was so much distraction. Seriously, I was just like selfish and I was just thinking about myself.  I wanted to go to school for whatever had the most high paying job out there I just picked it. I wanted to become a professional pilot. Did that for a couple years and, you know, just didn’t work out because it was so expensive. Went into electrical work and I just figured, go with the flow, see how it works out. I did that for a couple of months and I got shocked. Didn’t like it. And since my dad opened up this restaurant I just figured, who’s gonna help him? I told him, “I’ll help you if you need help.” It’s working out. I’ve never thought that I’d do restaurant business. At that time, I didn’t think about it. 

I would say I’m starting to become more people friendly and thinking about others. Before I worked here it was all about me, me, me, me. Just a closed minded person.  Now that I’ve worked here I just see everyone is different, you know.  Being patient is a key with my dad, he has a short temper and if my attitude is good and his attitude is good too. I see his attitude change and I’ve never seen him like that before. The attitude aspect, a positive attitude affects everyone in the kitchen.

[When he started the restaurant] my father, he’s just like “If they don’t like the way I cook my dishes then that’s it. There’s Burger King right down the street.” So we’re going to cook the authentic way and they’re not going to Americanize his own art and dish that he does. But we do have kids that come in that want ketchup with their chicken fingers and we’ll provide ketchup for them. It’s also, like, they can’t eat this can’t eat that, we’ll provide that for them. We can add anything, omit anything. Pretty much you can come in and modify your own dish and we’ll do that for you, no problem. We are trying get more like, “authentic” looking dishes, the way you would like in Thailand.  For like silverware and stuff, we kinda wanted to go more Americanized, it looks much nicer I guess.  It’s tough to get the iron from Thailand, too.

Our egg rolls are made from scratch, the sauce is — everything’s made to cook right there.  All the veggies are fresh and all that stuff.  We have a lot to do, we were even open on Easter, even though we didn’t get much business, there was a lot of work out there to be done.

We get some customers that’s never been here before and think it’s Chinese food. We have combinations on our menu that’s kind of for beginners. It’s pretty good, so once they try that, then they venture out to try other things on our menu. We have over 56 plus items on our menu. So I can tell sometimes when a customer has had Thai food before, ‘cause they like it spicy! That’s what’s unique about Thai food is that it’s spicy. We have two choices of pepper on the table so if it’s not spicy enough.

[Our best selling dish] is definitely the Pad Thai.  Pad means stir-fry in Thai, so it’s like a Thai dish.  Pad Thai, you know, it’s universal.  A lot of Thai places, Noodles and Company has a Pad Thai.  That’s my favorite restaurant, I don’t get the Pad Thai there though. I’ve had it so many times, but I have other noodle dishes I like. I like more soup noodles instead [of dry noodles], but it’s good still…actually, I had it yesterday. I always say: “It always comes down to how the head chef cooks his Pad Thai, the sauce that he makes.”  Our pad Thai sauce, we make that ourselves, too…It is our #1 seller noodle dish.  The first day, or the first week we were open, we ran out of Pad Thai noodles, we didn’t have any more noodles to sell, ‘cause we didn’t think it’d sell out like that. But now, we’re kind of on a steady course.

[Food on the menu considered] expert would kind of be more authentic. The number 10, 35, and 45a on the menu. 45a is called…Mok Bha…[it] means catfish steamed in a banana leaf so I recommend that to like five, six customers and they all loved it and there’s nothing left but the banana leaf. The soup, Thai tradition that with every meal there’s always a soup that everybody kind of — the Tom Kha number 17 is my favorite soup and there’s always a soup dish that comes with the meal but you can get it separately though.

But something authentic? The chefs…don’t really eat what they cook. They make their own traditional dish- for instance, the number 35 on the menu, it’s called the La Pi San- it’s just like grounded meat. You guys ever made hamburger or cheeseburgers? [It’s] just like the grounded beef. They just throw spices in there, and then they just eat it with sticky rice. You can make it with squirrels, bird, duck, anything. And that’s what they do back there (points to kitchen). They eat it raw sometimes, not the bird or the duck, but they eat raw meat. It goes way beyond eating the blood from the cow.

[The food that we serve here is] different [from the food we eat back home] because the time that it takes to prepare the food here is quicker as opposed to cooking at home. We have more time to cook and add more things…and…I like the red curry here, but when I go home and eat it with my mom, it’s so much better – there’s so much time to put into it- we just don’t have time to do all that here ‘cause it’s a fast paced environment…you need to get in and get out, especially for businessmen and businesswomen who like to eat quickly.

After I graduated college in 2009 I went back [to Laos] for the first time and visited most of my dad’s side of the family. I felt like it was the place where I was from. I didn’t realize it at all, because I didn’t know was it was like over there, but now that I’ve gone back to it. I went back for three months. And then I went back the same year for a couple months. It’s just so great that I’m planning on building a house out there too just for vacation or something.

I’m starting to do the financial part of the business.  When my father opened one up in Plymouth, I wasn’t so much there to help out because I was in school at that time.  I went for electrical construction, which has nothing to do with restaurants, and I’m not doing electrical work anymore.  I’d just figured I’d follow in my dad’s footsteps and kind of take over when he’s retired.  Keep it in the family, which I think is good.  But what I do, sometimes I’m a waiter, sometimes I get my hands dirty, I wash dishes.  I have these two guys running around taking care of the front.  I cook dessert sometimes, too, when we get a little busy.

I’m gonna have to [learn to cook], I’m gonna have to get out my dad’s recipes and you know in a long way when he’s not here I’m gonna have to take over that and keep it the same. That’s what’s getting the customers here.

I wouldn’t say [it’s] intimidating. Its just more responsibility I guess I don’t think I’m… I think I’m still kinda young to handle all my fathers responsibility I guess. I’m ready to take it on whenever he’s ready to give it up.