beXnlog

A 95

Finally, a few weeks back, i got a chance to check out Sripraphai in Woodside, Queens! A lot of people say it's the most authentic Thai restaurant in all of New York City. Our party included: P aka resident authority on Thai cuisine, Ishle aka lover of hot foods, be aka addictee to pad sew ew, and myself.

We tried to arrive by 7pm on a Saturday night since we heard the wait for dinner could get long - and no kidding! the place was full to the brim with people seated at every table and a mob of us clustered around the door, plus another group of people outside. As a party of 4 we waited about 30 minutes before getting seated in the renovated area of the restaurant. Meanwhile, we got a chance to study the desserts and to-go items in the refrigerated cases and the snack items on shelves lining one wall of the restaurant.

be ordered his usual shrimp pad sew ew and a papaya salad with seafood. P and Ish got different versions of the green curry, but P substituted thin rice noodles for the sticky rice. She also ordered a beef appetizer and Ish got a chicken appetizer which looked like fried dumplings. Of course i tried the vegetarian pad Thai and the fried tofu appetizer. Most of us had Thai iced tea to drink. Overall, everyone was very impressed with the food. be is not one to enjoy particularly hot & spicy dishes but he finished his entire papaya salad, which he claimed was one of the hottest things he's ever eaten - and it was "medium" hot! I really liked the flavor of my pad Thai although the noodles were slightly soft. P's green curry with beef contained little green eggplants which added a nice texture. (A funny note: even though P and Ish both requested their curries "hot," P's ended up MUCH hotter than Ishle's! Obviously it pays to order in Thai.)

For dessert, P chose us a sweet rice noodle dish served in coconut milk with crushed ice. The noodles were colored a soft green and hand-rolled. It was so refreshing and delightful. I chose a container of beautiful colored jellies, each containing a multitude of black seeds. Between the waitstaff and our guesses, we figured out the black gelatinous specks were actually basil seeds, adding a nice tiny crunch to the agar agar jellies.

I asked P how she'd rank Sripraphai on a scale of 0 to 100. While 100 is reserved for restaurants in Thailand, she gave Sripraphai a very high 95. I would most definitely go back to try more dishes, desserts and some of the snacks for sale. It's closest to the 69th St stop on the 7 train but we took the R to 65th St which is almost the same distance. Yay for eating out in Queens and being home in less than 15 minutes! But for those in the other boroughs, Sripraphai is totally worth the train ride for some great food.

For another review and restaurant information, check out John Roleke's post on about.com.

posted by beXn @ 2:25 AM