dresese

Zabb

Yesterday Ben and I went to Zabb, in Jackson Heights. After reading a review in the Village Voice, it sounded interesting enough to try. Evidently it is not just a Thai restaurant, but a Thai restaurant of the Esan (or Isaan, depending on the romanization) region of Thailand. If there is one thing better than ethnic food, it is regional ethnic food. In fact, my rule of ethnic food is that the more specific the region is, the better the restaurant is. Avoid, for example, a Chinese/ Japanese restaurant. Also avoid Chinese restaurants that say things like "we specialize in Shanghai, Hunan, Sichuan and Cantonese food". That's just another way to say "All our Chinese food is equally crappy". But if you can find just a Sichuan restaurant, or a Cantonese restaurant, then the food has a decent chance of being good.

At any rate, this was the first time I've eaten at any sort of regional Thai restaurant, so I was excited. Also fortunately, Zabb was open until 2 am, so I didn't have to rush. Zabb is right under the 7 train, a few blocks away from the Jackson Heights/74th St station.

On walking in the restaurant, one surprising thing is how small it is, and how nice it looks. Hey, this is Jackson Heights! Isn't everything here a hole in the wall?

The menu was extensive, mainly focused on salads. In the usual Thai style, the salads were mostly meat-based, with either beef, pork, squid, or even catfish. There was a tremendous variety, so that our decision was a bit agonized. As I learned from Chowhound, they also offer a special Esan-style hotpot. I asked for this, and was informed it was supposed to be on the menu, but they forgot to insert the page. They showed me the disenfranchised page, which listed two "steamboats", a Esan-style one, and a normal one (I think the normal one was even called "Suki Yaki", although I thought that was Japanese-only). The Esan-style hotpot was spicy, we were warned. We got that, and a papaya salad with calamari. Later in the meal, we added another dish: a "superball" combination, of pork balls, shrimp balls, and beef balls, all either grilled or fried (we chose fried).

The hotpot was great, easily the best hotpot experience I've had. The broth was dark, garlicky, spicy, and had a very robust flavor. The light color in the broth in the above photo is just due to the flash. We chose chicken and liver as the meat, and they also brought out some cabbage and some leaves that looked to me like dandelion greens, but were not bitter.

Our papaya salad was sweet, and had very interesting calamari, fried so crisp it was almost like a pork rind. In fact, now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure it was a pork rind. it was a nice contrast to the spicy hotpot, and it was tasty, but it didn't blow me away.

Finally, we had the "superballs", a name which makes me think of Stephen Chao's movie God of Cookery. They were glazed with a sweet sauce, but were fairly tasty. We neglected to see how well they bounced. Again, it didn't blow me away, but it was good.

Overall, it is an interesting place. I need to go back a few more times to try out some of the other salads, and perhaps an entree or two, before I can really pass judgment. But just the fact that it is not the typical Thai restaurant, with the same typical Thai menu, is enough to make me eager to try more.