A PSA for you because I love you -- Sripraphai is closed for vacation through January 15.  So don't invite seven of your buddies to take the train to Queens only to find the place all shuttered up like I did.  I arrived on Saturday night thinking I was so responsible for getting to the restaurant a half hour early to put our name down on the list only to discover that, once again, my Sripraphai plans had been foiled.  Actually, this is probably the third or fourth time I've gotten the shaft.  We always seem to go when the 7 train isn't running, or we forget that it's a Wednesday, or we get there at 9:30 and the kitchen has closed.

Anyway, with seven people en route, I had to call Doug and get his help dispatching the bad news to our dining companions, all of whom were Sripraphai virgins.   What were we going to do now?   

The house my Mae had built for my grandma in the tiny Isaan village where my Mae grew up.

Luckily, on our walk up Roosevelt Ave., we saw Zabb Queens, a place I've been dying to try since I heard about it.  Its specialty is the Isaan cuisine of the northeast, the region my Mae's family is from.  It's kind of like the "soul food" of Thailand.  Zabb is a colloquial Isaan word for delicious, but in my mixed dialect house, it usually referred specifically to the fever pitch of spice-tart-salt found in Isaan food that makes your mouth water; it's nothing like the treacly sweetness characteristic of most Manhattan Thai food.  Som tam can be zabb; nam prik can be zabb; ice cream was usually just aroy (the central Thai word for delicious).

The Isaan region is the poorest region of Thailand, near the border of Laos.  My uncle used to always say that our family was so poor, he had to lick the meat and eat the sticky rice.  Because it's inland, the cuisine is based on dishes with frugal amounts of pork and beef, river fish, and plenty of wild herbs and vegetables.  This poor people's cuisine is spicy and powerfully seasoned because the food is meant to be eaten in small quantities with large quantities of affordable rice.

Of course, we're not in such dire straits (even in Queens). Thankfully, the folks at Zabb don't neuter the flavor-extending punch of the dishes.  Mild-mannered fish was tarted up several ways.  The mucky brown catfish labb looked a bit like cat food, but it was even better than the white meat chicken labb -- meaty, earthy and smoky, it was laced with plenty of roasted rice and chili heat, set off by the sharp sugar of sliced red onion.  Crispy fish floated in a tom yam soup, its deceptive clarity only revealing the explosive lemongrass flavor on the tongue.  The star dish was the last one to come to the table -- whole steamed catfish came liberally topped with a halitosis-insuring salsa of lime juice, raw minced garlic and fiery sliced Thai chilies.  The white flesh was so tender that the skeleton released itself easily from the satiny white fillet.

Meats asserted themselves just as boldly.  Oblong discs of Isaan sausage dotted with sticky rice were dense and slightly tangy, contrasting nicely with palate cleansing bites of the accompanying raw ginger slices.  Beef nam tok was quite well done, but it was juicy and savory with a nice char and the warmth of black pepper.  Bill of Soundbites, who happened to have followed the same Sripraphai-Zabb trajectory that we had that night, suggested the spicy pork spareribs which were falling off the bone, a little sweet, and red hot.  Though nothing was obscenely spicy (we requested Thai medium for all dishes), the cumulative burn of the relentless dishes left my sweating companions pulling on their Beck's and going red in the face.

The one thing I ordered but didn't get a taste of was the papaya salad with pickled blue crab -- I forgot to order it Lao-style, so it came with those pesky peanuts.  Everyone else seemed to enjoy it, though.

Despite my protestations, half the table was curious about the durian ice cream.  Durian is the fruit that looks like a Viking mace head, and as far as I'm concerned, it smells and tastes like ass. According to my friend Jon, carnivorous tigers eat durian, mistaking the stanky fruit for rotting flesh.  Having tried the fairly mild ice cream version, I still recommend you avoid it -- half the people at the table found it offensive and half didn't.  Go figure.

So I have to say it, though it's still a little too early to tell -- Zabb easily gives Sripraphai a run for its money.  Wait, wait, hear me out.  For one, it's open seven days a week until 2 a.m., unlike Sripraphai, where they stop taking kitchen orders at 9:30 p.m. sharp and are closed on Wednesdays and for vacation (What kind of self-respecting Asian goes on vacation?  Everyone knows rest is for samsarin.)  (Oh my God, I just got myself thirty more squashed mosquito lives for saying that.  I hope you laughed so we can be stuck in the cycle of suffering together.)  Also, you don't have to wait very long for a table at Zabb, and there's nobody breathing down your neck for your table once you do sit down.  My cup runneth over with love for Sripraphai.  Unfortunately, the same can be said for a gazillion other people in this town, making it increasingly difficult to get a table when they are open.

And the food at Zabb was superb, funky and delicious.  The menu doesn't come close to the mind-boggling range that Sripraphai's has, and to be fair, I didn't try many of the non-Isaan dishes.  I wouldn't go there for, say, curries or noodle soups.  But for me, Isaan dishes are the best anyway (paging Dr. Freud).  Also, Zabb remains BYOB, which meant our bill with the tip came to a mere $20/person. 

I'm definitely going back to try some other dishes, including the Laos sukiyaki, which was reviewed by Andrew Hyatt a while back.  I'll keep you posted.  In any case, should you find yourself shuttered out of Sripraphai for whatever reason, there's no reason to go home hungry -- just walk a few blocks down Roosevelt Ave. to Zabb for an experience just as real and enjoyable.

Extra points for the sassy waitress who, in order to get two adjacent tables together for our 6-deep party, asked another group to get up mid-meal and scooch over.  So Thai, so hottt.

Zabb Queens
7218 Roosevelt Ave.
Jackson Heights, Queens
718-426-7992

7 to 61st St./Woodside or
many other trains to Roosevelt Ave.

P.S.  We tried to find a place to cool our heels while we waited for our table.  The establishment next door seemed to only be serving karaoke-squawking middle aged Korean men; and while the dark windows at the top of the stairs said "cafe" in English, the look on the face of the severely-coiffed lady who answered the doorbell said "brothel". Faced with these obstacles, we went instead down the block to a bar called Tentaciones for a quick beer.  Unfortunately, it may have been the scariest bar in NYC.  I tried not to focus too clearly on anything because I was afraid the black lights overhead were going to reveal spooge all over the skanky walls.  I went to use the bathroom and A.) there was a huge hole in the floor, with broken tile and mesh everywhere and B.) the toilet didn't flush and didn't seem like it had ever worked and C.) Doug said the men's smelled like it had been doused in a gallon of bad cologne in an effort to hide decades of smell and grime.  The moral of the story?  If you have to wait for a table at Zabb, just keep your panties on (literally) and wait in the restaurant.