I'm Just Mad About Saffron CHICKEN

So I was going to space these Saffron reviews out but dude, after thinking about that roasted chicken all week, we just had to go back on Monday and pick us up some take-out. I blame it all on Su-Mei Yu's own description: "I remember with great affection the little wooden huts lining the streets. From miles away we could smell the exquisite aroma from the spices used to marinate the chicken grilled under hot charcoal." As I read those words over and over again, I grappled for an extra drool cup.

In addition to reordering the Fantastic Egg Roll -- isn't the take-out container the most cunning little bit of Kill the Earth engineering you've ever seen? It's going to give our grandchildren cancer but it's simply adorable -- we got the Half Chicken Combo.

With the combos, you get heaps of sticky jasmine rice, Cambodian salad, and your choice of two sauces. See, that two sauces thing? Well, that was going to a problem for us. There was no way (NO WAY!) we were going to be able to choose TWO sauces from the five offered. No. We told the man we had to have all five. He didn't bat an eye as he rang us up our order that included all of the above plus an extra Cambodian salad.

I'd never had Cambodian salad and I was really looking forward to it and I was hungry because I hadn't eaten for four days straight and I recently learned that I had a tapeworm of unusual size that had been eaten by another tapeworm of even more unusual size...and...and...the truth is, my husband takes big bites and could very well have inhaled that entire Solo container of Cambodian salad in one go, so I felt a reserve salad was a good idea. Thank god I think ahead, because that Cambodian salad with the cabbage and the peanuts and the rice noodles and the sauce was something I could eat 24-7 and never get sick of it.

With our half-chicken order, we got a breast, a wing, a thigh, and a leg. I went right for the juicy white meat of the breast. Actually, I went right for the crispy spiced skin covering the juicy white meat of the breast. Oh, that skin! That meat! Those sauces!

We feverishly tore the chicken pieces apart (we gave up on spoons early in the meal and used only our fingers, which made me feel like Doris Day in The Man Who Knew Too Much) and dunked the flesh and skin in the sauce containers. I think my favorite was the sweet pepper sauce. It was spicy and it made me sneeze but it was softened by a vinegar-y touch under the prevailing sweetness, which fascinated me. Mark adored the Siracha, the smokey hot pepper sauce that had been puréed to a bright orange and was reminiscent of Tabasco sauce. The peanut sauce was velvety and salty -- peanut sauce always is, of course -- but it was nothing new to Thai Hut-hopping me. Even the strangely Mexican salsa with fresh chopped tomatoes and cilantro was a good addition. Finally, I was fascinated by Su-Mei Yu's special homemade chutney. It was chunky, sweet, and sumptuous with the roasted chicken.

It probably would have saved space and time if I had just said that I liked all the sauces and would probably order all five again just to get that amalgam of flavors -- hot, spicy, sour, sweet, savory -- but then you wouldn't be craving Saffron Thai Grilled Chicken, would you? I'll tell you what: come visit me in San Diego and we'll dip a wing or two.