Daily Blague

Photo by Ms NOLA

Last night, Ms NOLA and I had an adventure: we became tourists. We went to Woodside, in Queens, on the No 7 train. Our voyage passed without event, but we were complete tourists, looking out the train windows at the Manhattan skyline (yes, it is always about us) and wondering whether the train that we were on would stop where we wanted it to (it didn't, but no biggie). Not to mention pulling Hopstop routers out of our bags.

Our destination was SriPraPhai. Behind this neat unprepossessing storefront lies some of the best Thai food in the Metropolitan Area. We got there at about 6:30, when there were still many families at the tables. Seventy-five minutes later, the Manhattanites were arriving and there was a wait for tables.

My experience was mixed. I loved the mee krob that I went out there to enjoy; it wasn't as ketchupy as the local restaurant's. I could have eaten both little cakes myself. The sautéed catfish with eggplant in a chili curry sauce, however, was not my kind of dish. That it was too hot wasn't really the problem; the catfish bones were. What a nuisance. I hate working at food.

On the theory that I might get hungry later, I ordered, for take-out, the dish that had first caught my eye, sautéed pork in a curry sauce.

It's my goal to get large groups of friends to go out to SriPraThai, so that everybody can have a little bit of everything. And of course there's plenty of Singha beer - really the best in the world, to my mind - to wash everything down with.

The main thing was: we actually went. We did not talk inconclusively and end up doing nothing. No, we decided to do this yesterday, and stuck with our plan even though everyone who was asked to come along backed out. Having braved the borough border (Park Slope doesn't count any more than going out to Fire Island does), we were blessed with what I hope was not beginner's luck.

I know I sound like a fatuous Gothamite. But this fun trip was so beyond what I was capable of thinking about, much less doing, before Remicade.