Favorite recipes get passed down through generations of families. Gather enough great recipes, pair them with ambition and some end up in the restaurant biz.

One family’s recipes have proved successful three times over at the Pearl Kai Shopping Center, where Thai Bistro Suksabay is the third in a line of Thai restaurants passed from one family member to another, beginning with Champa Thai, then Thai Issan Cuisine. So if anyone feels a sense of deja vu looking at the menu, there’s a reason. Suksabay’s menu is nearly identical to that of Thai Issan Cuisine, which remains at Market City Shopping Center. The ohana’s winning streak dates to the 1990s.

The only problem is that enjoying the food in this new incarnation means putting up with a few service issues. The staff is inexperienced and seems to have some trouble prioritizing, so soft drinks fail to arrive in a timely way and tables don’t get cleared until needed. That means, during a couple of dinners lasting three hours, most tables were never cleared, leaving diners staring at stacks of dirty dishes, which doesn’t do much for ambience. Perhaps recognizing the challenges, I’ve seen guests try to be helpful and stack the dishes so they can be carted away more quickly.

I also noted all the plates were empty. It says a lot about the deliciousness factor when no scrap gets left behind, whether eaten on-site or going home as leftovers.

Usually, I would start at the beginning with appetizers, but what leaped off the menu page here was a dish called King of Chili ($10.50), which I envisioned as being red with chilies. The reality was a brown stir-fry of our choice of beef (other options are chicken or pork) tossed with chopped bell pepper, onions and basil, served over white rice and topped with an over-easy egg. My eyes were disappointed, but as I dug into the dish, they lit up. This dull-looking Hamburger Helper doppelganger or Thai loco moco was delicious. The secret is a house chili paste that goes into many of the dishes in varying quantities, depending on the heat level needed. It’s not painfully hot, but does have the tingling sharpness of cayenne on the tongue.

Sizzling Kahuku Shrimp ($13.95) is prepared with the same chili paste but with very different results when it’s wok-fried with a combination of onions, garlic, bell peppers and basil that gets crunchy in the process. It’s easily one of my favorite dishes here.

The chili paste also appears sparingly in thick chow fun drunken noodles stir-fried with garlic, vegetables and choice of chicken, beef, pork ($9.95) or shrimp ($11.50). It’s enough to give this comfort dish an eye-opening kick without burning the tongue. One thing strange for a Thai restaurant was that no one ever asked how much heat we could withstand. I guess they started us off mild because diners are welcome to add chili sauce at the table.

Newbies might want to start with tamer standards. A combination platter ($14.95) offers an affordable sampling of appetizer spring rolls, deep-fried calamari, chicken satay and fish patties that can serve two to four, depending on appetite. There were no standouts here, but most meat eaters would find another starter of Thai sausage ($9.95) hard to resist with its savory-sweet blend of pork, red onion, lime leaf, fish sauce, salt and sugar. An accompanying sweet chili sauce amps up the flavor.

Curries ($9.95 to $13.95) are de rigueur, but in addition to typical yellow, red and green curries with meat and vegetables folded in, Suksabay (and Thai Issan) is unique among local Thai houses in offering fried chicken and fried pork curries. Way to win over local palates! So that these strips of meat don’t lose their crispness before reaching diners, they’re layered on top of a thick Panang curry.

If you want even more crunch, deep-fried basa ($14.95) comes with a garlic-lime dipping sauce. The sauce is great, but I find the plain fish less interesting than the restaurant’s sautes and stir-fries, with sauces, herbs and spices fully integrated into the dish, delivering more complex flavors.

For dessert there are standards of tapioca pudding ($3.50), mango with coconut milk and sticky rice ($6.50) and tapioca with banana ($4.25). I’ve always left too full for dessert.

Nadine Kam’s restaurant reviews are conducted anonymously and paid for by the Star-Advertiser. Reach her at nkam@staradvertiser.com.