Du Jour: Sam Sanguanruang, Thai Kitchen

Twenty years ago, LSU graduate and budding entrepreneur Sam Sanguanruang was at a crossroads: open an auto shop or a restaurant.  Years of working in kitchens from Juban’s to Waffle House gave him the confidence to try his luck at the food business. And, he figured, why not show off the cuisine of his native Thailand? At the time, the Capital City sported only one other Thai restaurant, Rama, in the Perkins Road Overpass District. Sanguanruang and his family started by scouring the region for other Thai restaurants, whose menus he pored over for ideas. “We must have collected about 20, and we looked at them to see what people were serving in this part of the country,” Sanguanruang recalls. To read more about Thai Kitchen, click here.—Maggie Heyn RichardsonTo read previous Du Jour features on local chefs and other culinary experts, click here.