vip in the city

Spontaneously Sripraphai

Late Friday afternoon rolled around, and after a round-robin series of IMs, telephone calls and text messages, SYB, JL and I decided to meet after work at Grand Central Terminal for the trip out to Woodside for dinner at Sripraphai.

It had been a while – over a year? — since I last visited this temple of Thai. On weekends, the crush of “intrepid” Manhattanites spilling off the 7 can push waits to an hour — this is, after all, “the restaurant that Chowhound… built.” And sure enough, we arrived to find this small crowd gathered outside the restaurant. I do appreciate, though, the deli-counter style system of taking a number and waiting for the LED display to flash your table availability on the street-facing marquee…. so much more civilized than calling out garbled names/numbers to waiting masses. (There’s a similar display inside, if you choose instead to bide your time wedged next to the refrigerated dessert cases, hovering over seated diners.)

Twenty reasonable minutes later, we found ourselves seated inside the larger side dining room, perusing Sripraphai’s extensive menu. For the most part, we stuck to old favorites tonight, save for these tasty chive dumplings, which were listed as a special appetizer:

The salads alone are worth a trip to Sripraphai: Michael White, Executive Chef at Alto declared their crispy watercress salad “one of the greatest dishes…in NYC.” Time Out New York named the warm roasted duck salad #2 among “the most delicious mouthfuls in the city.” I like this papaya salad with dry shrimp & peanut: sweet, sour, crunchy and tangy with a heat that builds on you despite the absence of visible peppers:

Green Curry with roasted duck & coconut milk and Sautéed Drunken Noodles with chicken, chili & basil leaves:

Sautéed Chinese Broccoli with crispy pork — can’t go wrong with chunks of fried pork belly, really:

It’s fortunate that the food itself was so stimulating, because shortly after the appetizers hit the table, JL asked if the channel on the dining room televisions could be changed to the Mets game already in progress. Our server obliged, after which all table conversation ceased as two sets of male eyes remained riveted to the large flatscreens overhead for the remainder of the meal. New Met Johan Santana was well on his way to striking out ten in New York’s 6-4 win over Philadelphia and, well… as charming as I think I can be, there’s just no competing with that.

Tags: Sripraphai, Thai, Woodside