Widely renowned by hot dog lovers for their pork and beef, deep fried frankfurters. Perennial favorites include the Spicy Redneck and any of the bacon-wrapped dogs.
Sun-Thu noon-2AM, Fri Sat noon-4AM
Serves Moroccan, French, and Middle-Eastern cuisine, all dependably good. The cafe is especially popular for weekend brunch, but a very good breakfast/brunch is available every day of the week. More dishes are on the brunch menu on weekends, but you are likely to wait a half hour or more for weekend brunch during peak hours.
This is a branch of an Isaan restaurant headquartered in Bangkok. Expect spicy food unless you request for it to be made milder, and also be aware that items marked on the menu as including fermented fish have a very strong rotten-fish taste, which is authentic but may or may not meet with your approval. Among their best items are the gaeng om kai (Isaan-style chicken soup in a large bowl with cabbage and herbs, though you may want to ask for it with "less salt"), sa poak kai tod der (Der-styled deep fried chicken thigh), moo ping kati sod (grilled coconut milk-marinated pork skewers) and tum mangsavirat (vegetarian papaya salad). The restaurant is mellower at lunch, when the lights are on and Quincy Jones Band albums from the 1960s play on their sound system. At night, the low lights, techno music and crowds of young customers may make you think you should be dancing at a club. The restaurant is more crowded since Michelin gave it a locally-controversial star, but if you are a small party, you are unlikely to have a long wait except perhaps at peak hours on Saturday night.
Daily noon-11:30PM·Tum (papaya salad): $11-12; Deep-fried: $9-15; Larb/spicy salad: $11-15; Grilled: $14; Soup: $14-15; Rice & noodle dishes: $13-14; Side dishes: $3-6; Beverages: $3-4
This restaurant specializes in Sichuan dry pot, which is different from hotpot, in that hotpot is a soup that the diner traditionally prepares by being given two kinds of broth and ingredients of their choice to boil in real time, whereas dry pot has some sauce but is not soup-like, is prepared in the kitchen before being brought out to the diner and can be ordered to go without a notable dropoff in quality or freshness. The restaurant also serves appetizers, but the flavorful, aromatic (and if you order it spicy, quite chili-laden) dry pot is what you should order. You must order at least 3 ingredients in your dry pot, but 4-5 are common for an individual and 7-8 for a couple. Ingredients range from $3-12, but cluster around $4-8, so the price can mount fairly quickly, and tabs of around $24-27 plus tip for an individual and $40 for a couple are common. Tastes vary, but some of the ingredients that stand up well to the powerful sauce and spices are the soup filled beef balls, the lamb, the beef tongue and the lobster balls, and among the better ingredients for enjoying the sauce are the bean curd sheets, noodles and enoki mushrooms. Rice is also available for an extra charge of $1 for white rice and $2 for purple rice. This restaurant has other branches at 41 West 46th St. and 245 East 53rd St.
Mon–Fri noon–9:15PM, Sat Sun 11AM–9:15PM·Mala dry pot: minimum $12 + tax with 3 ingredients