PokPok

Out of this little place come wonderful, surprising flavors.

I’ll never forget the first time I tasted Thai food. It was in 1983 at a restaurant called Bangkok Cuisine on Seventh Avenue around 53rd Street. These faintly fishy, sweet and salty, burning hot  flavors kept dancing on my tongue, tastes that I had never experienced and the quest for the best Thai restaurant began.

I started going to Sripadthai in Queens. The food was good but in your face somehow and the trek was not really worth it.  Lately though I discovered Kin Shop and I’ve written about it because I like it though the last time I went I liked it less. But Saturday I picked up some take-out at PokPok on Rivington with my friend Shawn who was visiting from New Orelans and was blown away.

We had been out all day in 100*F weather and walked 3.2 miles according to Shawn’s pedometer. 1.6 miles of that was at the Ikea store in Brooklyn in 3-inch wedges, another mile at Smorgasburg where we ate nothing and we wanted a beer and some food in a cool place.  Pok Pok was not that kind of spot-it’s really a take-out place with stools so high my feet just dangle uncomfortably but the counter is manned by two of  the nicest and most professional young men I have been helped by in an eatery in a long time.  The food they recommended hit the spot  in such  a way that three days later I can still remember every bite.  We got some beers and sat in my air-conditioned car and ate the best Thai I have had to date.

The takeout packaging was great: A banana leaf held the food and it was all neatly wrapped in waxed brown paper into a roll but I got no pictures and the food is not very photogenic in any case so just imagine how wonderful it will taste.  I know I will be back as my delicate stomach will give me permission.