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Thailand native follows in her father's footsteps with food cart, making sauces, while her husband works magic on the grill.


When Kanyanat Puthdee was a little girl, her father would wake up early to roast chilies. The elder Puthdee worked at a noodle cart in Bangkok, where he made his own garlic oils and shopped for ingredients each morning.

“My dad’s noodle cart was popular because he cooked every morning,” she said, standing in her own food cart, Big Blue Thai BBQ, on Commercial Street. “He made garlic oil, chili powder. He was the one who taught me you have to make everything fresh.”

And she does, alongside her husband, Ray Johnson: He roasts peanuts and chilies for curries and marinades, and she chops papaya and grinds sauces by hand with a mortar and pestle.

The Big Blue Thai BBQ cart stays parked on Commercial Street SE, in the parking lot of Aunt Bee's.  The outdoor grill sizzles throughout the day, piled with pork shoulder and ribs engulfed in charcoal smoke while Puthdee, a former Tup Tim Thai waitress, mashes Thai green and red chilies. She laughs, jokes with regulars, casually tossing cloves of garlic into her clay bowl, adding a tablespoon of fish sauce or chili.

Puthdee and her husband are the kind of power couple who makes any culinary romantic swoon: What Johnson can do with smoke and soy sauce would make a Texas pitmaster steam at the ears. Still, he said his ribs just don’t taste right without his wife’s sauces, and he’s right: His grilled pork shoulder is outstanding, but with Puthdee’s tamarind sauce, it’s unforgettable.


The barbecue

Before Johnson hands plastic containers of barbecue to new customers, he delivers very specific instructions.

"Now, you're going to get two sauces. This one, this is a lime garlic sauce; it goes on the ribs. This one, this is tamarind chili. It's for the grilled pork. Don't pour it on the papaya salad. Everyone says it tastes good that way, but it's not right."

He cautiously hands over the bag, like a new mother passing a diaper bag to a babysitter. It's so sweet, these meticulous instructions, because he acts as if his ribs couldn't be eaten plain with pleasure.

Johnson's food service experience is limited to a three-month stint at Wendy's when he was a teenager. He learned to barbecue on the streets of Thailand, visiting his wife's family.

"I would watch these street vendors cook and wonder why no one cooked like that in the states," Johnson remembers.

He cooks his pork and chicken with charcoal, the way he saw Thai men barbecue, and drenches his ribs in a soy marinade called Moo Yang. The oyster sauce in the marinade accentuates the sweetness of that charcoal smoke.

The sauces Puthdee crafts pair piquant Thai chilies with palm sugar, with the fragrance of scallions and fish sauce. Ordered "Thai spicy," the sauce coerces you into playing a masochistic game: keep eating and burn, or stop eating and yearn.

Chicken satay skewers come turmeric-stained, charred and juicy, with a palm-sugar peanut sauce that's sweet but not cloying. A tangy side salad with shredded carrots complements the peanut sauce, which has a touch of coconut milk. This dish, while yummy and filling, is easily overshadowed by the aptly named Super Best Combo, with grilled pork, ribs and a side of papaya salad.


The extras

Spice is always a negotiation at Big Blue. As opposed to using an arbitrary scale, Puthdee turns your spice designation into a dialogue: "Thai spicy or American spicy? I can just use the red chilis, so you can see them. We could just use dry spice."

Order the Thai Papaya Salad whenever possible. Eat it to clear your sinuses, to pretend you're healthy, to bring the fire back to your soul. Eat it just to watch Puthdee make it for you, grinding all those ingredients by hand.

Thai Papaya Salad is made with green or unripe papaya, which is similar to jicama. Puthdee thinly slices green papaya with tomatoes and carrots for a slaw tossed in tangy, spicy dressing. Charred peanuts, a little detail with a lot of smarts behind it, tempers the heat of the dressing. Any dish with touches of Johnson's cart-roasted peanuts, chilies or kaffir lime leaf remains grounded in earthy smoke.

The roasty quality of spicy pork salad comes from a cart-made rice powder, a Thai seasoning that adds nutty, savory notes to salads and fresh dishes. Aromatics like thinly sliced shallots and green onions play well with cilantro and fresh chili. Almost like an herb salad, leaves of cilantro and arugula stand out without the interference of a vinegar-heavy dressing; that being said, I would love a teaspoon of that papaya salad dressing tossed on these greens. In the words of a friend, "Munching through undressed arugula kind of makes me feel like a cow."

Big Blue Thai BBQ always keeps a curry on the menu, which works for vegetarian diners. The curry uses the charred peanuts, palm sugar and a generous portion of tender (not overcooked) vegetables for a sweet, smoky curry. To accommodate us heatseekers, she adds a plastic cup of chili flake so you can choose your own adventure. To get the most out of your curry experience, use the optional lime for a harmonizing burst of citrus.

Final thoughts

Often, in towns with a developing culinary scene, restaurants will take on an entire country or region with extremely diverse flavors out of a desire to represent that culture in full. You know a city has broken through a significant barrier when restaurants open representing niches of one country's cuisine, when there are not just "Japanese restaurants" but ramen restaurants, sushi restaurants and izakaya.

The fact a restaurant (OK, food cart) like Big Blue Thai BBQ can open in Salem is a great sign for our restaurant scene as a whole. The kind and welcoming Big Blue family figured out the one thing they don't just do well, but have perfected; we're just lucky enough to enjoy it.


If you go

Big Blue Thai BBQ: Three and a half out of four stars

Where: 2679 Commercial St. SE

When: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, noon to 7 p.m. on some Sundays

What to order: Super best combo, papaya salad, pork ribs, grilled pork

What you'll spend: $5 to $16; $30 for a full rack of ribs

Get in touch: (971) 301-8714


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