Taste of New York

You know you're in for a good lunch experience if you actually leave the comfort zone of Manhattan and venture out to another borough. I was privileged enough to head up a trip to Queens one afternoon to Sripraphai, one of the best Thai restaurants in New York. Before trying almost everything on the menu that day, my knowledge of Thai food didn't go past pad Thai and maybe some noodle bowls.

On this special day, I was willing to try anything. We started out with enough appetizers to feed an army. Thai catfish meat with papaya salad, Thai catfish meat with mango salad, roasted duck salad, bbq beef with chili and lime, and ground beef (larb) with chili lime and mint and a shrimp tom yum soup. The catfish meat was pretty strange I'll admit. You would never know what you were eating because it looks like a blob of fried air. It's crunchy and slightly chewy and worth trying if you've never had it before. The bbq beef was heavily rubbed in chili and was pretty spicy. The larb was probably my least favorite - I didn't think it had such a great flavor and I had way too much food on my plate to eat something I didn't love. The tom yum soup was delicious. It was spicy as well with huge pieces of shrimp, and mushrooms. It was a clearish broth and my only gripe is that the tails of the shrimp were still on. Made it kind of hard to eat when you had to take the tails off first.

I could have stopped eating right then and there, but couldn't because we had SO much more food coming. Dark stewed beef tendon soup, drunken noodles with beef chili and basil leaves, fried soft shell crab, crispy pork, green curry with chicken and red curry with beef, and two whole red snappers. And of course sticky rice and coconut rice for the table.

Like I said earlier, I was willing to try anything that day, and that included the dark beef tendon soup. If you want to know what makes the soup dark, ask me because I don't to stop people from trying it. I liked the broth, it was a little sweeter than I imagined but I learned that I do not like beef tendon. It was really chewy and just not for me. The drunken noodles on the other hand were awesome. They were big flat noodles and ground beef and basil leaves. Kind of like a Thai version of pasta bolognese.

I started the lunch thinking that I didn't like curry and wasn't even going to try it. But I changed my mind. Turns out I don't like red curry, but I do like green curry especially with some coconut rice. And of course, what can be bad about fried soft shell crab? It wasn't overly fried and you could just keep on eating and eating it. The best part of soft shell crab is that there is no cracking involved. With real crab like king crab legs, there is too much work involved it's not even worth it.

The adventure in Queens wasn't complete without a trip to the Lemon Ice King of Corona. Corona, Queens - not the beer. The flavors aren't as creative as Ralph's, but these ices are all non dairy. My favorite was the raspberry, cotton candy and coffee.

My advice is to go to Sripraphai when you can take a nap afterwards because you will definitely be in a food coma for the rest of the day. If you're not as adventurous as me, they have your basic pad thai and a whole vegetarian menu also.