I’m normally hesitant to talk in superlatives about anything culinary. There are always those who will disagree with any dish, drink, restaurant or chef that I confer the honor of “best of”. But I think many will agree with me that Sripraphai restaurant in Queens is in fact just about the best Thai restaurant in New York City.
Marita and I had lunch there today. She said she was “technically full” since we had just had a late and filling breakfast but that didn’t keep her from enjoying a technically full meal at Sripraphai. (She says two of the dishes were technically appetizers – but they were quite generous portions and could be considered, to my mind, as technically entrees). Here’s what we had: fried soft shell crab with shredded green mango sauce, papaya salad with crispy catfish meat and shrimp and egg fried rice. The soft shell crab was the best we’ve ever had, and so were the catfish salad and fried rice. Sripraphai is not stingy with its ingredients and they really know how to balance all the contrasting tastes of mint, basil, fish sauce, chiles, tomatoes, limes, nuts, curries, etc. to come up with perfectly made dishes.
I always try to pick an unusual dish at every restaurant. In this case, we tried a dessert of warm sticky rice, custard, dried fish, shrimp and shredded coconut that was dyed red. It tastes a lot better than it sounds. We can break our rule of not going to the same restaurant twice when it comes to Sripraphai, hopefully soon 
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