Sripraphai

64-13 39th Avenue
(718) 899-9599

This one's a total no brainer. Sripraphai has the best, most authentic Thai food in New York (so they tell me, anyway; I've never been to Thailand to experience the real deal firsthand). It's tasty as hell, it's cheap, and the surroundings are devoid of hipness and pretension. Word to the wise: Don't try to be macho about your spice tolerance. Sripraphai will win this ego battle, and you will cry through your meal and for several hours afterward. The lowest levels of spiciness are totally adequate to the non-Thai palate.

Be sure to try one or more of the desserts in the refrigerator case by the counter. The milkier and more gelatinous, the yummier.

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Joya

215 Court Street
(718) 222-3484

I went to Joya the other night with the ladies from work, and we had a tasty, so-cheap-you're-not-sure-if-they-messed-up-the-bill meal. Most of the dishes were around $7. I'm not sure whether it's just a cheap place or whether such deals are totally commonplace in Brooklyn; if the latter, I am beginning to think Brooklyn is a magical place that, however far from Inwood, deserves to be further explored.

The food is not at the Sripraphai level, but it's totally decent and respectable Thai. We shared several appetizers, including the vegetable dumplings, the salmon and mango spring roll, and the fried calamari. I am a recent convert to calamari and as such am quite sensitive to rubberiness; this calamari was decidedly unrubbery and good. I got the Spicy Noodles with chicken as my entree, which was quite delicious but not spicy in the least. Perhaps you have to ask for spicy, or perhaps the waitstaff simply saw that I am the whitest person alive and spared me. Hmm.

One word of caution, however: Do not order a mojito. Under any circumstances. They don't know how to make them, and as one of my colleagues astutely observed the product tastes something like a glass of seltzer in which someone has just swizzled a toothbrush. Skip it and get a bottle of wine instead; they're all reasonably priced.

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