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Saloon
Montreal, Quebec |
Curly’s Vegetarian Lunch
New York, NY |
Dish
Charlotte, NC |
Casimir
New York, NY |
Chai
Brooklyn, NY |
Peasant
New York, NY |
Pat’s King of Steaks
Philadelphia, PA |
The Abbey Food and Bar
West Hollywood, CA |
Bar 89
New York, NY |
Restaurant Globe
Montreal, Canada |
8 Minute Dating
New York, NY |
Hamburger Mary's
San Diego, CA |
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| Chai |
124 North 6th Street
Brooklyn, NY
718.599.5889 |
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Chumwater and armacy here. We're writing this one together, based on our recent excursion to Chai in hipster central, aka Williamsburg.
 Armacy's got a problem with this guy. When she’s alone with him everything’s fine – great, even. He’s the first guy in a while who gets excited by the same things as armacy, and the first guy in a while who gets armacy excited. The trouble occurs when they go out in his neighborhood. The boy is a little too into the Williamsburg scene, and seems scared to death that armacy’s "reveal" – that she lives in Jersey will become known to the scene. A plan was devised to get the boy into a local Thai restaurant (his weakness) and let all the iPod jockeys in the place know just how Jersey armacy can be.
So chumwater promised armacy an evening of beer and tips on making a scene. In the process we’d determine in which Thai restaurant armacy should take her guy out for dinner to throw her fit and make a scene. Some hipsters prefer the movie set-sized Sea Thai Restaurant, the place too loud for anyone to notice if their food even arrived; but it’s just not possible to make a scene in that kind of environment. On the recommendation of a friend we headed to Chai, a small restaurant and saki bar known for great Thai food. We needed to determine whether the small size of the place could make a great stage for a public scene.
We were pleased to find we could get a table even on a Saturday at 8, which was fortunate because the place was otherwise full. We immediately ordered the first round of old reliable Singha, Thai beer at its best. We decided to compensate for armacy's mood by pigging out. We ordered no fewer than four appetizers, along with main courses. After placing our order we sat back with our Singha and contemplated the space.
Chumwater maintained this wasn't the best place to make a scene because it's too damn hard to storm out, a must to end any tantrum. The tables are too close together, to the point where someone at the next table generally has to move so you can get up. We also noticed the low-lying attractive, serene fountain by the door; it looks nice but it's just the kind of thing you could trip over while storming out, and nobody wants to look stupid in mid-storm-out.
 The appetizers came. The golden calamari ($5) was served with a light chili sauce, which had a great tangy flavor. The sweet corn fritters ($5) were served with a Thai curry paste with cucumber relish; both of us found them tasty even though this isn't really chumwater's thing. We also scarfed down two kinds of dumplings; the pan-fried chicken dumplings with soy sauce ($3.50) were decent and seared to perfection for that great firm dumpling consistency. Chumwater thought the Chai home-style peanut dumpling with chicken ($4) was good but didn't hold together too well, falling apart after one bite. Armacy enjoyed the dumplings so much she was willing to pick up every broken piece. An important note on all of these dishes is that if you're going to really go for it and start flinging food, these would all make largely flaccid, unsastisfying projectiles with the exception of the calamari.
Another round of Singha later, and armacy was well into the details of her failed attempt to date a younger man. Even though they met over a stack of 45s at a record fair, the Boy obviously felt he was "hipper" because he overpaid his rent in a better zip code. He was constantly over-explaining locations of places, and always changed the subject when armacy would start to talk about where she lived or worked with his friends. When he came to visit Jersey, he would go on about how "this is how the rest of America lives". This guy really deserves a scene in public soon.
Our main courses came; chumwater had the Indo-chicken ($9), which was marinated with Asian herbs, grilled, and served over curry rice with special house peanut sauce. The spices were subtle and tasty, and were even better when mixed with the peanut sauce. Armacy's Viet-style stir-fry chicken with mango, snow peas, and cashews ($12) was tasty enough to distract her from the real purpose of their visit. But more importantly the prices were very reasonable; you really shouldn't spend too much money on food you're going to not eat, or possibly throw.
All in all it's a great place, possibly decent to take someone you only want to fuck, though we didn't find it suited very well as a great place to make a scene. If you really want Thai in Williamsburg that's cheap, and served in a good-sized room you can easily storm out of, we recommend nearby Planet Thailand. |
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| chumwater and armacy |
| October 9, 2004 |
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