Everyone Should Have an Uncle Boons

[yum kai hua pli - benjamin petit for the times]Pete Wells awards a favorable two stars to Uncle Boons this week in a review that touches on more than half the dishes on offer at the new Nolita Thai hot spot. "The owners and chefs, Ann Redding and her husband, Matt Danzer, met while working as cooks at Per Se," informs Wells, "And the marks of Thomas Keller’s ballet academy are far more visible than you’d expect at a place that plays warbly Thai covers of “Another Brick in the Wall” and “Hang On, Sloopy.”

"The electricity kept cutting out, then flicking back on a few minutes later," Wells writes of a visit to Uncle Boons, but it took nothing away from the bright flavors coaxed out of the small kitchen by Redding and Danzer. Having written a particularly food-focused review, we thought we'd give you a break down of each dish the critic mentions. So if you need help deciding what to order when you go to Uncle Boons, and you should go to Uncle Boons, let this be your guide.

Mee krob (fried sweetbreads with crispy noodle salad) - "The sauce at Uncle Boons, which starts with tamarind pulp and palm sugar, was rounded and rich and deeply engaging."

Yum kai hua pli - "A salad of warm roasted chicken torn and tossed with crunchy threads of sliced banana blossoms. The chicken would have been great by itself, but it was the dressing that helped it shine through the power failure: warm coconut milk soured with lime juice and spiced with dried chiles to an intensity that I think of as handkerchief-hot."

Mieng kum - "Mounded on a soft, fresh betel leaf are fresh ginger, coconut, dried shrimp, peanuts and very hot chiles. You dab on some shrimp-paste sauce, fold the leaf over and pop it into your mouth, and right away your taste buds spring to attention. It’s a preview of the flavors that will become major themes of the meal."

"Coconut milk is the foundation" in both dup kai kaeng supalot and massaman neuh. In the former, it joins a "remarkably aromatic curry of chicken livers and fresh pineapple." In the massaman, it supports "shredded potato and braised beef cheeks that break up the minute you dip a spoon into the bowl."

Yum mamoung na boon (green mango salad) - "tilted too far into sourness"

Kao pat pu (fried rice with crab) - "...the wok had been a few degrees shy of the smoking fury that leads to great fried rice."

"Uncle Boons came through with searing heat when it was called for, especially in that chicken salad (kai yang Muay Thai) or with a laab of minced lamb (laab neuh gae) wok-fried to a deep mahogany and served warm; fresh mint and cilantro temper the spice but in no way tame it.

Lon pu kem - "raw snap peas, radishes, crisp green mango and Thai eggplant to be dunked into a bowl of creamy, coconut-rich crab dip."

"And there is just enough fresh green chile in a thin nam prik sauce to bring out the sweetness in charcoal-grilled blowfish tails (pak pau) or baby octopus (pla muuk) that would fit in your palm if you were silly enough to place them there and not between your teeth, where they belong.

Khao soi - "A coconut-milk-based curry yellow with fresh turmeric is one key to the greatness...But really, everything in the bowl plays a part: the chicken leg stewed to irresistible tenderness, the pickled mustard greens, the big frizz of fried cilantro-flecked egg noodles on top and the same noodles boiled in the curry." [NYTimes]