Free Williamsburg

The Williamsburg Brooklyn-based culture guide to New York and beyond.

Amarin Cafe

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Amarin is our go-to Thai joint for a reliably good meal. We’re never blown away, but the food is satisfying when we’re looking for affordable Thai cuisine. We like their Chicken Masaman Curry and their Pad Thai, but everything is done well. The dining room is unremarkable, but comfortable and rarely crowded which is a huge plus. One word of caution: when they say spicy, they mean SPICY. Be sure to order mild or medium unless you can handle it.

Featured Reviews

  • This no-frills Thai spot by McCarren Park promises flavorful fare at a low price. It’s great for such standbys are pad thai, curry, and satay, but also be sure to check out some of their house specials– the basil shrimp sauteed in onion, pepper, and chili sauce is on point. It’s cash only, but they offer free BYOB.

  • If you’re seeking refuge from the wave of glammy Thai spots to hit Williamsburg in recent years, head north, to where the only frills are the local artwork on otherwise bare green walls. All the brilliance here goes into the food: A pair of golden, crisp crab cakes are first good, then great when dunked in rich, coconutty peanut sauce. Basil chicken, ordered medium spiced, is quite hot; shrimp with asparagus is scattered with nicely crunchy cashews.

Getting There

SriPraPhai

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We were very excited to hear that SriPraPhai had opened a location in Williamsburg. The Queens restaurant is considered to be among the best Thai spots in New York City. That said, we were disappointed by the oily, low quality mess we were served at SriPraPhai. We haven’t visited the much-hyped Woodside location in a couple of years, but we hope their quality hasn’t dipped as well. Despite our high expectations, SriPraPhai is just another mediocre North Brooklyn Thai joint.

Featured Reviews

  • The expansion here makes SriPraPhai more accessible for much of NYC, bringing the restaurant much closer to Brooklyn and downtown Manhattan inhabitants. Signature dishes at the restaurant, often heralded as a pioneer in NYC’s Thai scene, include the Isan sour sausage and mango sticky rice, though the expansive menu also includes lots of larb, noodles, soups, curries, and more.

Getting There

Win Son

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Opened in 2016 as part of a successful Kickstarter campaign, Win Son is simply one of the best Thai restaurants in the city. Nestled away in a small space in East Williamsburg/Bushwick, the restaurant serves a traditional blend of Thai dishes including pan-griddled pork buns, sesame noodles, oyster omelette and the always polarizing stinky tofu. (Try it, you just might like it!) Expect to wait, because Win Son is popular, but you will not be disappointed. Save room for dessert because the Tian Miantuan (fried sweet dough, vanilla ice cream and sweetened condensed milk) is amazing.

Featured Reviews

  • Win Son is just an unassuming neighborhood spot that happens to serve some of the city’s most ambitious Taiwanese fare.  ne of Taiwan’s modern classics, spicy popcorn chicken, became popular in the late 1970s as an easier-to-eat analog to the bone-in variety, hawked by local KFC outposts. Win Son’s riff on that dish is spectacular. Brown coats dark-meat nuggets in a cayenne-laced sweet-potato starch, fries them to a dense crunch, and drenches the morsels in a butter-spiked persimmon hot sauce. The chicken bursts with a distinct poultry tang, offset by shards of crispy fried basil. Wendy’s stock price would go through the roof if the chain figured out a way to take these nationwide.

    Taiwanese fare, of course, is not new to New Yorkers, but what makes Win Son particularly compelling in 2018 is that it’s benefiting from a resurgent interest in the Asian nation’s cuisine, fueled by a new crop of young culinarians riffing on their ancestral fare. 

  • The menu is a mix of some of Taiwan’s greatest hits, freely tinkered with by Brown, and originals inspired by the cuisine. Take, for example, the so-called nutritious sandwich, named for the Keelung Miaokou Night Market stall that serves a very popular sandwich of fried sweet dough with Kewpie mayo, crispy hot dog, thousand-year-old egg, tomato, and cucumber. The dough is still fried, but the fillings are subbed out for a mix of pineapple, ham, and jalapeño. Other dishes only have minor changes or none at all: The fried eggplant comes with tart labneh in addition to the usual black vinegar, and pan-griddled pork buns are doused in chili vinaigrette. To wash it all down, there are a few beers, wines, and cocktails like the Auntie Leah (gin, cherry amaro, Aperol, lemon, and lime.) 

  • Brown’s dishes feel constructed for maximum fun. He serves eggplant fried piping hot and buried under chopped cashews and fresh herbs, riffing on the chilled, marinated version he enjoyed abroad. The bowl of crunchy nightshades comes drenched in black-vinegar caramel and, startlingly, labne kefir. (“One thing I learned in Taiwan: Everything’s game,” Brown says.) The dish is Win Son’s sleeper hit, a donnybrook of flavors tied together by rich, tangy yogurt.

Getting There