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Hungry Thirsty makes a number of key modifications to Ugly Child’s authentic components.
Picture: Courtesy of Hungry Thirsty
When the homeowners of Ugly Child, probably the greatest Thai eating places within the metropolis, introduced on the finish of November that they have been closing, it might’ve been the tip of an period. On a nonetheless fairly desolate stretch of Smith Avenue, near however not fairly among the many bougie hustle and bustle a number of blocks north, Ugly Child had been a beacon for spice hounds trying to short-cut what would in any other case be a visit to Elmhurst. Chef Sirichai Sreparplarn had made so many followers of his Northern Thai cooking that Ugly Child was the uncommon restaurant the place quoted hour-plus wait occasions for tables (it took no reservations) really have been hour-plus wait occasions. New York had raved, the Instances had raved, Michelin had Bib’d. And by the tip of 2024, Sreparplarn was justifiably exhausted. “We’ve got pounded batches of curry paste daily for 7 years,” the restaurant wrote in a farewell notice.
However Sreparplarn provided the area to his present employees, who snapped it up and saved issues going. On the finish of January, the restaurant reopened underneath its new administration and its new identify: Hungry Thirsty is the work of Napat Ruangphung and Thanatharn Kulaptip, former servers at Ugly Child, and Prasert Kanghae, who undertook a really fast examine in Sreparplarn’s kitchen, amounting to a couple of month.
Is the newborn nonetheless ugly? Properly, the restaurant remains to be vividly orange, that’s for positive. The Expressionist paint daubs have been rollered over to stable colours, however apart from that, the look of the area hasn’t a lot modified. The kitchen remains to be large open with masked cooks at again mastering towers of flame.
However Hungry Thirsty isn’t Ugly Child, which set an impossibly excessive customary. The delicacies has migrated to the south, although two holdovers from the earlier menu endure in memoriam, listed underneath the heading “Our Impressed”: khoong muk kai kem (shrimp and squid in a sauce made from salted duck-egg yolk) and panang, tender bits of beef shank in a candy, coconutty curry. I loved the panang, although I had pangs for a few of the nice, departed treats that not seem, just like the coconut-milk tue ka ko with black beans.
Neither is Hungry Thirsty as reasonably priced as Ugly Child, in its earliest days, was: It was once that nothing on the menu was over $25, however that was a number of New Yorks in the past. Now specials like kha moo kaki (stewed pork leg and ft with intestines) ring in at $72, although it’s nonetheless very doable to eat properly and affordably right here, and there’s a lot to suggest the place. A starter salad of preserved sardines in a bitter escabeche of vinegar and chiles was meaty and bracing. A mushroom curry — with Thai mushrooms of a delightful rubberiness, paying homage to wooden ears — was shaggy with a wealthy curry paste that pooled glistening oil when your spoon dented it, because it ought to. We wolfed up deep-fried rooster skins, like Thai chicharrones dusted with tangy, Dorito-orange “Tom Yum powder,” which arrived in their very own edible fried basket for optimum heart-stoppage.
Is Hungry Thirsty important, as Ugly Child was? In its earliest days, most likely not. Nevertheless it’s laborious to fault anybody for that. Ugly Child was one of many eating places that raised the stakes for Thai cooking throughout the town, at present in an efflorescence of greatness. Ugly Child didn’t introduce Thai to Brooklyn, nevertheless it definitely marked a milestone within the dispersion of genuine, fiery, regional Thai, and its baton has been picked up by eating places as disparate as Sukh, in Fort Greene (a type of Thai Epcot, scene-setting a prepare journey by means of the nation, which might be a groaner if the meals wasn’t wonderful), the sister eating places Sappe and Soothr in Manhattan, and lots of others. Hungry Thirsty isn’t fairly a sufferer of Ugly Child’s success, however it is just one heir of the world it ushered in. We’re all the higher for that.
Let me notice in closing that the one two drinks on provide at current are ice water — saved regularly refilled, thank God — and cutesy, Care Bear mugs of slushie-machine Thai iced tea. You have to them. The menu, and the employees, make very clear what’s merely scorching and what’s hot-hot-hot, however on this specific approach, Hungry Thirsty may be very a lot upholding Ugly Child’s proud custom of incineration. “That is the sensation I keep in mind,” my husband stated, flushing, as he reached for his glass. “I can’t imagine we didn’t even get something over one hearth emoji.”
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