Taste of Thailand

Sukhothai

by Kate Sonders and photographs by Amber S. Clark, December 21, 2007

In April, 2005, Chira and Ray Rabenda opened Sukhothai. The restaurant was packed on the day they opened, and they are filling tables almost three years later. On my visits to the restaurant, the tables were brimming with young couples, families, and groups of friends. Sukhothai, one of the few Thai restaurants in the region, fulfills Rabenda’s goal to bring Thai culture and “tasty, well presented” food to the area.

Growing up in northeast Thailand, Rabenda learned to cook from her mother, whom she recognizes as her greatest culinary influence: “She taught me well. She always encouraged me. My parents worked hard and I learned from them.” Rabenda often had to cook for her large family (she is the second of 11 children), on a remarkably small budget. As Thai cooking tends to be based more on oral tradition than written history, she learned cooking secrets from her mother: techniques passed down from generation to generation that cannot be found in any cookbook.

While Rabenda’s mother tended to her large brood, her father supported the family financially, owning a cinema and dubbing foreign films into Thai. Parlaying language skills learned from her father, Chef Rabenda entered and won a contest in Bangkok doing voiceover narration. Later, she attended Griffith University in Australia where she studied hotel management, earning a master’s degree.

Three days before September 11, 2001, Rabenda moved to New York City. Shortly thereafter, she met Ray, a Poughkeepsie native, and moved to the Hudson Valley. Having worked in the hotel industry for 12 years, the recent newlywed questioned her career goals. While never having worked as a chef, she had cooked for her large family and her friends, who frequently sampled her culinary creations and encouraged her culinary ambitions. She relished the challenge and the Rabendas set out to actualize their vision for a Thai restaurant. They settled on Beacon, a city poised for growth as it emerged from the Hudson Valley’s post-industrial doldrums.