Peanut butter and chocolate. Apple and cinnamon. Pumpkin and spice. There are some great food combinations in this world.
Chef Annie Phinphantthakul, whose family runs the Woodside Thai restaurant Center Point, is adding some more.
She’s decided to mix her love of Western-style tea and confections with homestyle Thai cooking to create a new concept, Madame Tea Sweet House, which opened on Dec. 21. (She’s working with her daughter, Ginger, a Culinary Institute of America-trained pastry chef.)
Operating out of Center Point at 63-19 Woodside Ave. on weekends from 2 pm to 6 pm, she offers such savory items as Thai Green Curry Chicken salad finger sandwiches, Thai Curry Puffs, and Thai King Rama II’s favorite dish, Khanom Jeeb Nok, bird-shaped dumplings filled with ground chicken, radish, and caramelized onions.
Sweets include jewel-toned Khanom Chan with pandan and coconut jelly; Foi Thong, a specialty of egg yolks drizzled with sugar syrup that’s served at Thai weddings; and such Western style desserts as macarons, cupcakes, and fruit tarts.
The general price — $39.99 — includes a pot of tea.
One More Special
Chef Annie has also created Thaimakase, a selection of eight homestyle Thai dishes that’s available via reservation at 718.651.6888. The menu changes weekly, but each platter always features a fried whole fish, grilled prawns accompanied by sticky rice, and several nam prik (savory spicy relishes).
She also has an a la carte menu with such classics as Crab Meat Omelet and Pad Thai Bolan with Prawn along with new creations like Larb Pork Nachos. Desserts include Bread with Four Puddings, a riff on the classic Kanom Pan Ping, which is traditionally made with batons of sweetened butter toast.
Images: Joe DiStefano