Green Papaya in Flushing

[Pan]

This place is on Prince St. about 2 blocks north of Roosevelt Av., for those of you keeping score at home. I thought a Thai place fairly popular with Flushing Chinese people as well as people of other ethnicities that got a good Newsday review last year (I think) might be good. It wasn't.

It seems like the waitresses are Chinese and don't speak Thai - when I ordered Tom Kha Gai I was asked whether I wanted shrimp or chicken - maybe just a tad off-putting, but so what? All I care really care about is the food and halfway decent service. And they did understand my English-language requests OK after some discussion. I ordered that soup plus Shrimp with Basil and Chili Sauce (I forget the Thai for that but just ordered it as #57), saying that spicy was good for me but bell peppers weren't. A substitution of baby corn was suggested, but I said that would probably be canned (that was confirmed), and we agreed on broccoli.

When the Tom Kha Gai came, it included strips of bell pepper that I didn't eat but the liquid was tasty. The chicken pieces were about double bite-size, though, and it was odd that there was a combination of fresh regular mushrooms and small (button, I think) mushrooms that had a distinctive and unpleasant canned taste.

But it was the shrimp dish that really fell down. The broccoli substitution was carried out faithfully, but the sauce was unpleasantly oversalted and there were no basil leaves. The waitress claimed that there was basil in the sauce, but I couldn't taste any.

So why is this place popular?

[kevin]

It is probably popular because too many people have no idea what good, or authentic Thai food is supposed to taste like. The more I learn about Thai cuisine the more aware I am of how low the bar is for this food. The publics perception of what Thai food is contributes to this problem as well. In Toronto, we have around 120 Thai restaurants and out of that thewre are maybe 5 good restaurants and only one of these is even close to being a truly "fine" dining experience.

[SobaAddict70]

What constitutes "good" Thai food and good "Thai" food is different from what you or I would expect.

The lack of variety of herbs is one thing, as is the tendency by most restauranteurs and chefs to "dumb-down" flavorings for local palates. Thus the result tends to be a decidedly non-authentic experience (i.e., too sweet, not spicy enough, not enough contrasting tastes, etc.), what most people would describe as "good" Thai food.

To borrow another parallel, it's sort of like the difference between going to just any old sushi restaurant and dining at the feet of a master sushi chef, like at Kurumazushi.

There are probably over 30 Thai restaurants in NYC, of which perhaps less than five are good "Thai" food. Sripraphai in Jackson Heights and the place in the east 20s on 1st or 2nd Avenue whose name I can't remember are two examples. Now that's sad. I think Sripraphai's relative in JH which was profiled in a Village Voice article late last year is a third.

Soba

[Pan]

Soba, are you thinking of the Pongsri Thai on 19th and 2nd, or is there some other place?

[SobaAddict70]

Actually, I was thinking of Anh, which is a Vietnamese place on 3rd Avenue (26th and 27th Streets).

No matter; here's another example: Pam Real Thai Food.

There are probably more -- it's just that coming up with a list of good "Thai" restaurants is really difficult, and that's a damn shame.

Soba

[kevin]

I think Thai food at this point in the publics mind (perception) Thai food is where Chinese was long ago, in Toronto, that would be 30 years, when yes most of the food was dumbed down to accomodate the Western taste. Certainly, gapi and nam pla raa are a little strong for many peoples taste, they can be toned down and add the requsite depth to the dish without being a predominant flavour. Strangely, it is all the coconut that many Thai people I speak with are "tired" of, that and the extreme spiciness. But the food can still feature these flavours in a sliding scale to accomodate the pallette of timid Westerners.

To me the difficulty in trying to get the public to look beyond coconut, peanuts, phad thai and fresh spring rolls, for that matter any spring roll, is the single greatest problem confronting Thai food. There is not enough awareness of the regional differences of Thai cuisine, the variation of tastes and techniques employed throughout the country or the skill and complexity of the palace cooking. When phad thai, or any noodle dish for that matter, is not served during formal dinner hours and not every sauce employed is coconut based and the menus reflect that of a fine dining restaurant not some 100 item "Wok-jockey" place.

In terms of locating herbs, in Toronto I can get most anything, I can't seem to be able to get sweet mountain coriander (Sorry, I can't find the Thai name) but as far as the most used of Thai herbs, they should be readily available in NYC.

[Pan]

Kevin: I'd like to continue the line of discussion you've brought up in General Food Topics, because I consider it relevant to a wider audience. Please click here:

State of Thai food in North America

Edited March 14, 2004 by Pan (log)