Marathon (in the Heart of the beautiful Florida Keys) has recently been blessed with a truly wonderful Thai restaurant, Takara Thai. Located Gulfside in the former digs of our departed Japanese restaurant, Sue & Lou are serving up a nice array of dishes ranging from soups, salads, curries, and fried rice to noodle dishes and sauteed dinner entrees. On our first visit, I tried Thai ice tea for the first time--creamy, sweet, but with a good strong tea flavor, much like a tea milkshake! (Great foil for the spicy stuff.) The chicken, mushroom and coconut milk soup (tom ka kai)--always a favorite of mine--was delicious, and not so spicy it choked you, although all the dishes can be more or less spicy to taste (six levels of heat are listed in the menu--our second, takeout purchase of this soup we notched it up to a 2--still yummy and edible, we may go for 3 next time!--our takeout Pad Thai chicken was also terrific). Hubby's Al's seafood version of the soup (Tom Ka Talay) was just as impressive, with scallop, squid, a huge mussel, and other goodies in that wonderful stock. Chicken sate and a salad rounded out my meal, and it should be noted that even a simple garden salad (with huge cuke and tomato slices) is made heavenly with either the house ginger (savory!) or peanut (sweet!) dressings (these are so good they're also sold separately). Al's curried duck was tasty and extremely generous--we're sure there was half a bird there! The restaurant is small enough that I could clearly hear every single table at one point or another effuse to Sue (or Lou) about how wonderful the food was. Service was very good, with the whole family pitching in (we don't know for sure who's cooking in the back, but it looked as if it was probably Sue's mom). Part of the reason I am writing this review is because--and you may not believe this, I hardly did!--it is the first time in my entire life that I have ever been in a restaurant where all the customers broke into APPLAUSE over their delightedness with their meals. As of this writing reservations are not required, but given the word of mouth already spreading around town and the small, intimate nature of the venue, this will probably not remain the case! Open for lunch and dinner Monday through Saturday, 11-2 and 5-10 respectively, closed Sundays; [--].