Daily
News
Friday, January 19, 2001
The Eats Beat
By Irene Sax
"Two hours of joy" said a sign on the
door , but it didn’t mean the meal. It meant a concert of classical
Thai music to be held at Thai Angle, a new member of the city ‘s
group of pretty-good Thai restaurants.
What did this used to be? You wonder when you walk in. Take away a mock
bamboo roof hung with temple bells and pictures of an Asian paradise
complete with teenage nymphs, and what you ‘ve got is your basic
pizzeria décor. The lunch crowd is part German tourists, part
workers in neighborhood dot-coms and part young Asians, who are probably
among those workers. They com for food that ‘s satisfying but
unsubtle and just good enough to make you remember all the really great
Thai meals you ‘ve had.
Start out strong with yum nam sod ($6.95), a refreshing salad of minced
pork tossed with red onions and roasted peanuts in a dressing made of
crushed garlic, chilies and palm sugar thinned with lime juice and fish
sauce. Or crunch away on good old green papaya salad ($4.75), the ribbons
of papaya, green beans and roasted peanuts powdered with dried shrimp.
One day, the dressing hit just the right balance of sweet and salt,
fire and tang; another day, it fell flat.
As in many Thai restaurants, you can mix and match different curries
with chicken, beef or pork for $8.25 or with shrimp, squid, scallops
and mussels for $10.50 (These are portion to share: on the lunch special
for one, they are $4.75 or $5.75 with short grained jasmine rice) Jungle
curry has a rustic, raw-tasting chili sauce unmoderated by coconut milk;
Massaman curry is tamer and easier, with potatoes, peanuts and slices
of red onion floating in a creamy coconut sauce.
From the list of noodle dished, we picked pad cee eiw ($6.25), chewy
wok-seared flat noodles that had been tossed with shreds of pork, Chinese
broccoli and sweet, dark soy sauce, More Chinese that Thai, they were
totally greaseless and totally delicious
