Authentic Thai at Sripraphai

If you ever look up "authentic Thai" or "best Thai restaurant NYC," your search will always lead you to Sripraphai.  It is known as the "go-to" place for great Thai food.  Unfortunately it's located in Queens, but with Anne's handy car, we made the trek across the bridge to check out how authentic this place is, especially with our Thai native,Thanan, in tow. 

Whenever you eat at a restaurant that is of someone's culture, tradition is that said person must order the meal for everyone in the native tongue.  And that is what Thanan did. 

Here's what he picked for us:

Papaya salad with crispy catfish meat.  Not a fan of ripe papaya, I must say I am a new fan of  this raw, tender Thai papaya, especially when tossed in the light fish sauce vinaigrette.  The fried golden mass to the right of the picture is the crispy catfish meat. Yeah.  I know.  Resembles nothing like catfish anymore but still has the taste!  Those wily Thais!

Tom yum soup.  I thought it tasted fine, but Thanan was pretty adamant that this was not authentic because of two reasons: 1) it had tomatoes, and 2) it was too sweet.  True tom yum soup has no tomatoes and tastes really sour.  However, despite the sketchy authenticity, I enjoyed it.

Whole fried red snapper topped with green mango sauce.  Strands of raw mango tossed in a fish sauce was served atop a beautiful, dinner plate length red snapper.

I love eating whole fish among friends!  The sauce was terrific; we liked mixing it with our rice.

Water morning glory.  Thanan says this vegetable is hard to cook just right; it needs to be crunchy at first but tender after the first bite.  And Sripraphai did it just right!  Thanan ordered it spicy, so they put in Thai green chilis throughout the dish.  You had to really look at what you ate, as Anne unfortunately found out after chewing an entire green chili.  Again: those wily Thais!

Sauteed pork in garlic.  This dish was definitely the worst of the bunch.   It had the texture of pork but not the flavor of it.  It's like the pork was just cooked in a veil of ambiguous garlic and sauce.  I don't even know how to describe it.  I just want to say don't order this and leave it at that.

Shrimp pad thai.  Purely standard, borderline blah.  Wouldn't recommend. 

Dessert #1: egg yolks soaked in sugar syrup.  There are whole egg yolks and then shredded egg yolks on the right.  We eat took one tiny bite and immediately fell into a coma: it was that sweet.  Over 3/4 of the container was left after dinner, which Thanan had no problem finishing himself for breakfast the next day.  A bowl of sugary cholesterol: the true breakfast of champions.

Sticky black rice with coconut milk and taro.  This was so much more our style - lusciously sticky and drenched in delicious coconut milk

Mango with sticky rice.  Always a sure winner

Afterwards, Thanan gave Sriphraphai his seal of approval.  And that's all you can really ask for (as Thanan would have you believe).

Sripraphai

64-13 39th ave

Queens, NY 11377

(718) 899-9599