Elmhurst's Finest: Restaurant Reviews

Chao Thai (85-03 Whitney Avenue, Elmhurst, NY, 718-424-4999 )
Coco Restaurant (82-68 Broadway, Elmhurst, NY, 718-565-2030)

Dense with Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese and Latin restaurants and food markets, Elmhurst typifies the hectic, overflowing melting pot that is Queens, New York. Narrow, confusing streets and throngs of pedestrians along Broadway and Queens and Jackson Boulevards can try even the patience of a Buddhist saint, but well worth the teeming crowds and traffic are a dozen or more remarkable dining experiences. For today, we'll share two with you.

Unique is Chao Thai, with a kitchen so creative and authentic it singlehandedly may redeem a cuisine Cafe Drake had nearly washed our hands of. Let us explain: by the mid-1990s, a glut of Siamese eateries had attacked our home neighborhoods of Williamsburg and Greenpoint, with a total of 12 lacklustre restaurants in Northern Brooklyn serving up identical slop at each location. Differently owned but sharing essentially the same tired menu and generic flavor profile, these Thai imposters foisted their banal repertiore on diners unconcerned with subtlety or finesse. Inexplicably these charlatans flourished and today the plague continues. Well, hope springs eternal and salvation awaits in our neighboring borough.

The first glance at Chao Thai's menu heralds a change in the air; we recognized only a handful of dishes on offer! Daily specials are scrawled in Thai script on a dry-erase board, but the staff does their best to attempt translation. Cafe Drake wil return again and again until we've sampled it all, but for now, from the printed menu, highlights include: Catfish and Coriander Salad ($10), a scorching hot appetizer of pork, chiles, onions and basil called Yum Nam Sod ($6.95) and Pork Belly with Assorted Basils ($7). The classic national dish, Laab, as scarce at Brooklyn and Manhattan Thai restaurants as hot chiles, can be had here for a mere $8; the ground pork or chicken is piled atop crispy lettuce and blanketed by green and red peppers, onions, raw and fried shallots, basil and mint, and completely lacks the erstwhile sickly sweetness we'd come to associate with Siam. See photo above.

Coco Restaurant around the corner specializes in Thai and Malayasian cooking, but with Chao Thai a hard act to follow, stick with the latter cuisine. Typically boring meat and vegetable curries are emboldened here with the addition of fresh pineapple chunks, cubed apples and plenty of genuine heat. Order it hot and you'll remember the meal all the way home! Especially good is the roti canai ($2.95) and the Squid Sambal ($10), dangerously salty but addictively good. Shrimp paste is a key ingredient here, finding its way onto almost every plate, but just as the similarly prevelant coconut milk, never overwhelms the exceedingly fresh seafood flavors. Many unfamiliar vegetables abound as well, and even okra, a shy visitor to most area menus, can be had here at least two different ways. Vegetarians, don't pass on the fried radish cake ($6), grilled until charred and dressed with bean sprouts and tangy soy dressing, it's ten times lighter than any version you've had at Chinatown's greasy spoons.