By Paul Reidinger

ASK PEOPLE TO name their favorite Thai restaurant and you are likely to hear as many choices as there are people asked. There are a lot of Thai restaurants in this town, and most of them are at least pretty good. Thai food, like Chinese food before it, has become central to the neighborhood restaurant scene in most of the city's neighborhoods. But there are a few long-lived Thai spots that have acquired a broader reputation, among them Manora's, Thep Phanom, and Marnee Thai.

Over the years I have been to all of them and found the food and service to be quite good (very spicy at Thep Phanom) – and certainly a superior value. Of the three, Marnee Thai was for us the least convenient; it lay deep in the avenues of the Sunset District, on a commercial stretch of Irving Street where parking was paradoxically – or perhaps not paradoxically – next to impossible.

But that visit, whenever it was, was then, and this is now, and nowadays one watches with a certain morbid interest as upscalish places pass from the scene to be succeeded (if they are succeeded at all; quite a few haven't been) by less upscalish, more reliable, more overtly ethnic restaurants. The onetime Avenue Nine space in the Inner Sunset was one such locale; it stood dark for well over a year before reopening in November as ... a second Marnee Thai.

The mitosis makes sense in some ways and is slightly awkward in some others. The two-block passage of Ninth Avenue between Lincoln and Judah is already thick with restaurants, which means competition but also lots of foot traffic. (There's another excellent Thai place, Sukhothai, on the next block.) And much of the traffic consists of students, presumably budget-conscious, from nearby UC San Francisco; for them, the new and convenient Marnee Thai means good food in a striking setting at something approaching half off.

If you didn't like the setting when it belonged to Avenue Nine, though, you're not likely to change your mind on stepping into Marnee Thai. The space is still narrow and deep, with a low ceiling; mess halls on nuclear submarines must have similar dimensions. The good news is that the Day-Glo colors have been softened and enriched, and the heat is now working. (One of my more vivid memories of Avenue Nine was of nearly freezing to death at a table near the rear.) The Thai artifacts scattered about, on counter spaces and hanging from the walls, are not exactly harmonious touches, but they are too small and too few to be obtrusive, and the overall effect is cheerful.

Chef and owner Chai Siriyarn opened the original restaurant in 1985 and spent the subsequent 18 years developing a reputation not merely for strong food but gracious service too. Perhaps in 18 years the staff at the new place will be equally proficient, but for the moment things are a little rough, from abruptness on the telephone to a slightly untoward briskness in bringing the bill and getting rid of people. I like efficiency, but I prefer efficiency tempered with gentleness; I do not want to feel handled.

It is also irritating when main courses do not show up at about the same time. At dinner, when the pace is slower and the mood more communal, it doesn't matter so much, maybe – you just share what does come and wait for the next thing – but a staggering of several minutes at lunch is uncomfortable. We'd opened with some lovely imperial rolls ($5.50), squat cylinders of brittle gold stuffed with ground chicken, prawns, cabbage, and bean-thread noodles – a single platter, so no timing issue. (It was also served promptly.) But my curry and noodles ($5.95) preceded my friend's pad prik pao ($5.95) by several odd minutes. There was no explanation and no apology, and when the other dish did appear, it was more or less flung onto the table. Fortunately, both were tasty: the former a spicy coconut-red curry broth, fortified with strips of beef and bamboo shoot, to be ladled over noodles on the side; the latter a Chinese-like, and also quite spicy, stir-fry of chicken, baby corn, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and onions (all the vegetables nicely crisp-tender) in a soy-based sauce.

At dinner we found much the same pattern – one dish unaccountably delayed – but as we'd been mellowed by a pair of first courses (not to mention a bit of beer) and were not in a noontime hurry, our (by which I mean, mainly, my) irritation was muted. We did find the rice-paper wrapping of the fresh egg rolls ($6.75) to be tough, but the filling – of tofu, chicken sausage, egg, cucumber, and bean sprouts – was compensatory, as was the glistening, amber tamarind sauce on top. And tom ka ($6.95), the classic Thai soup of coconut milk, lemongrass, galanga, and chicken, was flawless.

I could understand that barbecued squid ($6.95) – elongated balloons on skewers – might take less time to prepare than spicy duck ($8.95). Squid has to be grilled very carefully in any case since it quickly turns tough if overcooked. Marnee Thai's kitchen handled the squid skillfully. But we waited so long for the duck – shreds of meat stir-fried with tomatoes, onion, chilis, garlic, and basil – that we began to wonder if the order had somehow got lost. No: at last it arrived, nearly a strange dessert at the 11th, or perhaps the 9th, hour.