THAImarket, Amsterdam north of 107th

After a day visiting David's mother in the hospital, I walked alone through the heavy rain, almost knocking a man with my umbrella that shielded me from seeing what or who was in front of me, shook out my umbrella in the entry way to THAImarket, and was seated by the window at a cafe table. The waitress came for my drink order and returned almost immediately with a glass of Cote de Rhone served in a thin lipped, long stemmed glass which I sipped as I read last week's NY Times Book Review.

THAImarket is a neighborhood Thai restaurant with pizazz -- great food -- an ecclectic, garage decor -- that is, cement floors, brick walls, folding glass windows that open to the street in warmer weather. The bar is above fluorescently lit red and white glass, above that open red umbrellas lined with twinkling lights. Behind the bar, bells hang over rectangles of gold leaf looking something like a recent Guggenheim exhibit. Huge photographs of Siamese foodie scenes are back-lit behind a line of tables. The smallish restaurant was rather empty and quiet (we'd been there on busier nights) for this Saturday following Christmas. I sat down alone about 6:45.

I tried to order a delicious pancake-tortilla- crepe concoction I'd remembered -- that was served with a dark sauce filled with chicken. Except that the dish I was remembering did not exist on the THAImarket menu. (Only later did I realize I was trying to order something I'd had at Malaysian Grill.) So first I ordered the Curry Puff -- curried chicken and potato in puff pastry. That wasn't it. But it was delicious -- crispy on the outside and smashed potatoey on the inside.

So I tried again, explaining to the waiter that that wasn't what I meant to order. He was quite willing to take the Curry Puffs away and replace them or take them off my bill, but I wanted them (yum) and ordered the Thai market Crepe, thinking maybe this is what I had in mind.

It was not. But it, too, was delicious. Eating the Thai Market Crepe is like eating lace-- a thin, crispy, eggy rice crepe folded around shredded shrimp, coconut flakes, beansprouts, and fresh leaves of cilantro. A feast of textures and tastes.

I also ordered an appetizer called Tao-Hoo Todd. This was fried tofu -- not at all oily -- just crispy and dry on the outside and soft and succulent on the inside covered by a thai version of a latke: strips of taro and peanuts fried into a flat pancake. Again -- no oily sensation -- only the crispness of well fried food. And those fried peanuts -- I'd never tasted anything like them -- almost peanut buttery on the inside and crisp on the outside. This came with an apricot and chopped peanut dipping sauce.

And then (yes, I was already almost full -- and I'd only eaten half of each of the appetizers) -- my order of vegetarian pad thai with tofu arrived. It was the best pad thai I'd ever had. A squeeze of lime -- and the dish came alive. Soft, al dente rice noodles that twirled around my fork, morsels of delicately flavored broccoli, spinach, cabbage, cabbage, egg, and silken tofu. Not too spicy, no residue of oil. And yes, more than half of that came home with me, too.

The bill for three appetizers, one entree, and a glass of wine came to $37.

December 29 we returned with friends. This time, four of us ate (no wine) for 64.00.

I ordered the Pla Rad Preeg for which they substituted steamed snapper (at my request) for the fried catfish. The lovely fish was served smothered in a hot coconut milk-red chile sauce, long eggplant, red peppers, and lemongrass. I was so concerned about substituting the snapper for the catfish, that I ignored the 3 star "hot" rating -- which was unfortunate, because I loved the flavor of the sauce -- but found it too spicy-hot for my palate. My lips and tongue burned from the "heat" and were not quite soothed by the bowl of white rice.

David ordered the Kow Moo Deang, sliced pork and bits of pork sausage served over white rice with a brown aromatic sauce. Succulent and good.

Meridiana, Broadway south of 106th

CLOSED

We needed comfort food. We had also been gazing longingly at the cover of the new Bon Appetite with it's enormous plate of spaghetti and meatballs, which I didn't feel like cooking. Two blocks south of us is Meridiana, a handsome looking Italian restaurant. Even the windows are the painted metal framed windows you see on restaurants in Italy. White tablecloths cover the tables, tented white napkins, an embracing decor of mellow mustard walls.

We were greeted at the door by a gregarious waiter who seated us at a four top, in the center a bottle of Perrier and a burning candle. The wine menu offered many choices -- I ordered a Malbec and David had a something with an Italian name that he'd never had before. Neither were on the "glass" list, but the restaurant was ready to accommodate our choices. Both were good and grew better as they breathed and we drank. Soothing music you could talk over played: Louie Armstrong, jazz vocals, Italian opera.

Ahh. The bread. Very fresh and spongy focaccia. Homemade wholewheat rolls light without saltiness in a semi-soft crust. Very good, but they would have been better if they'd been heated.

We shared a the house salad -- wonderfully fresh greens including romaine lettuce, a deeply green arugula, sliced endive, and the kind of tasteless, cardboardy tomatoes that you unfortunately get in winter. All were covered lightly with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

And when the attentive wait-staff cleared the salad and bread plates they also took our silverware. I always feel a moment of what-will-I-eat-with panic when the silverware is swept away -- and then feel relief knowing I'm being taking care of, that I'll get a new set of silverware for my next course.

I ordered the spaghetti and meatballs. I found the marinara sauce thickly tomatoey -- and with every bite kept thinking, I'm getting a good dose of lycopene. The meatballs were soft -- made primarily of veal, beef and breadcrumbs -- not the meatballs I fantasized which would be richly beefy and a bit crunchy on the outside and juicy-meaty on the inside.

David ordered a duck ragu with peas over a freshly cut home-made pasta. It tasted more like a rich meat sauce. The pasta, shaped like matchsticks, was perfectly al dente.

For dessert we ordered a slice of ricotta cheese cake. Wonderfully textured, a slight lemony zest, and delicious. We kept chiseling away at the cake -- each taking a bite until we split the last inch of it in half and in half again and in half again -- each trying to save one more bite for the other. Yum.

Our waiter offered us after dinner drinks on the house. David ordered a port -- very smooth. I ordered grappa -- very rough. I would have had to be wheeled home if I'd had more than the few sips I took.

Our bill came to $72. We look forward to returning and trying other dishes.

Flor de Mayo, Broadway south of 101st

A Peruvian and Chinese restaurant?? Yes. And a menu to reflect the two, very different cultures. We were seated immediately at a table for two when we arrived at 5:40 on a Sunday evening (early dining in order to make a 7 pm concert at Symphony Space). An hour later when we left, a line was crushed inside the velvet-draped door (which kept the cold, snowy night out and the warm, bustling crowd in).

I could have pointed anywhere on the vast menu and ordered. So overwhelmed, I ordered something familiar: vegetarian egg foo young. The lightly fried patties of egg, peas, bamboo shoots and chestnuts were crisp on the outside and wonderfully textured on the inside. Three huge egg foo young patties came with a light brown sauce. Surprisingly, the food was not oily.

From the specials on the Chinese side of the menu David ordered shrimp with watercress and brown sauce, another surprisingly non-oily dish. It was delicious. The plump shrimp served over a bed of watercress crunched when you cut into them (a sign they were fresh and not overcooked) and tasted of the sea. You had to twirl your fork to wind like spaghetti the long strands of green. He also had a bowl golden corn soup. Yummy sweet -- filled with corn and chicken chunks -- a bit thin, tasting like canned, creamed corn.

The restaurant filled with ethnically diverse families and couples and foursomes. Most ordered Peruvian food; we eyed platters filled with a half chicken, salad, and fried plaintains.

Our bill, including a beer for David (which I sipped) came to $36.

Malaysia Grill, 104th just east of Broadway

Malaysia Grill offers a melding of Thai, Chinese, and Indian cuisines. What draws us back is the coconut rice -- and the variety of dishes served that go with or complement the rice. On our first visit we ordered beef with eggplant, green beans, red and yellow peppers and okra cooked in coconut milk. We also ordered roti canai, a thin, soft, crisp pancake served with moist dark meat of chicken, a hot orangy sauce, and thinly sliced onions. The combination of soft and crisp divine. Even the leftovers reheated in a microwave are still good.

We first encountered Malasian Grill in its former location on Broadway and 87th. Shortly after I tried to return and the restaurant had closed. My daughter and I had walked up from 42nd Street hoping for the coconut rice, the wonderful flavors. We ended up in a less satisfying Greek restaurant.  Now, we can walk (since we moved) down 4 short blocks to Malaysia Grill's new iteration.

On a recent visit with our daughters, we each, not realizing the others were ordering almost the same thing, ordered a coconut-curry stew or either vegetables with tofu or vegetables with chicken, or vegetables with seafood.  All came in ceramic bowls filled to the brim.  While we had looked forward to a variety of flavors and textures -- and eyes the passing plates heaped with green beans, shrimp, chunks of chicken and more -- we dove into the tasty, spicy broths of our respective bowls.   There was plenty to take home for a second and third meal.

Our meal had started with delicious steamed dumplings.  Inside the sealed al dente rice flour package was aromatic, minced vegetables.   We also shared an order of roti canai -- scooping up the chunks of chicken in torn corners of a Malaysian version of pita or naan bread -- moist on the inside, buttery crisp on the outside.

The Block

We moved two months ago to Broadway and 108th Street to a block bordered on the north by 109th and on the east by Amsterdam, few blocks south of Columbia University in New York. We like to cook. But we also like to eat out and bring in. To move to a new neighborhood in New York is like dropping a skier on a new slope -- you want to explore trails and and open expanses -- or in our case, the nooks and crannies and tastes and textures of new food. Within a 3-4 block walk from our new home are scores of restaurants -- some inexpensive holes in the walls, some Zagat recommended and decorator designed. We enter each hoping for gustatory delight.