Thai restaurant Chili Baby opens in Miller Place

After seven years of operating Hungry?, a Thai restaurant in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, Michael Distelkamp and Scene Lerdawas decamped to Suffolk County. Chili Baby, which opened last month in Miller Place, takes the same traditional-meets-modern approach, but in a space that’s more than twice the size.

“Our lease in Greenpoint was up,” Distelkamp explained, “and we wanted a house and a good school for our son.” Once they settled in Mount Sinai, they began checking out the Thai restaurant scene and found it wide-open. “There’s some Chinese fusion around but, from here to Mattituck, no real Thai.” (And, for that matter, no real Thai east of Mattituck, either.)

Their style is based on the cooking that Lerdawas grew up with in Phetchaburi, a province in central Thailand. “It’s the kind of comfort food you get at home, where every dish is made fresh, nothing is premade, nothing is microwaved,” she said. And the ingredients are as authentic as possible, from the Chinese broccoli and fresh bamboo shoots they buy at Oriental Market in Stony Brook to the “top shelf” fish sauce and sweet Thai sausage that they source in Queens.

That fish sauce gives the green curry its haunting savor, and you’ll find large chunks of bamboo shoots and tiny Thai eggplant in its depths. The sausage — along with ginger, onions, scrambled egg and grape tomatoes — figures in a delectable fried rice.

The menu is dominated by noodle dishes and while some feature traditional rice noodles (pad Thai with thin noodles, pad see ew with wide ones), many of their signature dishes use ramen. “We like that it's a fresh noodle,” Distelkamp said. Added Lerdawas, “in Thailand, we use wheat noodles like this — we call them yellow noodles — for ‘bus noodles.’ “

Chili Baby’s bus noodles, a traditional transit snack, are stir fried with bean sprouts, cilantro, ground peanuts, fried garlic, scallions and egg. A slightly saucier selection: spicy Bodhi noodles with coconut milk, onion, peas, carrots and fried shallots.

There are also stir fries, rice and fried-rice dishes, street foods and starters such as spring rolls, pork-cabbage dumplings, satay or crispy wings. The most expensive thing on the menu, crab fried rice, is $21; most main dishes are under $20 and portions are generous.

Chili Baby takes over the former Burrito Palace in the Marshalls shopping center on Route 25A in Miller Place. The spotless dining room is still a work in progress but already boasts extremely comfortable chairs.

Chili Baby, 333 Rte., 25A, Miller Place, 631-509-0222. Open Monday to Saturday 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., 4 to 9 p.m. Closed Sunday.