Thai food in Manhattan is mostly like Thai food in any other major city in the U.S.: it’s kind of generic, full of green curries, red curries, yellow curries, pad thai, pad see ew, and all the other ordinary Thai dishes that you would expect. It rarely has the fiery papaya salads of Bangkok or all the other stir-fries and other dishes that would set the average person’s mouth on fire. To get really delicious and authentic Thai food like you would have it in Thailand, you usually need to go out to Queens, either Woodside or Elmhurst, for that food. And when you don’t have time to go there, there’s two spots in Hell’s Kitchen that are good: Pure Thai Cookhouse, which always, always has a wait, even at 4pm on a Saturday; or its new sister restaurant Taladwat, which opened nearby. I originally was able to try it out via delivery a few months ago and enjoyed it, and today, we went in for an early dinner and got Chris’s spicy food craving fixed up. The portions were small, but the food was delicious and spicy, and as an added bonus, the seating was relatively roomy.

It’s hard to give Thai recommendations in Manhattan, but these are two solid ones that are right in our neighborhood that we know we can always rely on.