A THAI point in Manhattan by IRENE SAX

Here I go, stepping bravely out on a limb. Right now, Thai Market serves the best Thai food in Manhattan.
I heard about it from my friend the Thai chef. "You’ve got to meet me there. I’ve been five times."
Two days later I sat waiting for him in a beautiful new restaurant in the area between the upper West Side and Morningside Heights. Behind me were ceiling-high photos of Thai markets; above me were Bangkok street signs; and in front of me a counter shaded by bigred umbrellas. Nothing was expensive, but everything was just right, a statement that also describes the food.
It has heat, but not enough to numb your mouth. It has palm-sugar sweetness, but it’s never cloying. There’s fish-sauce saltiness, but not enough to frighten Westerners, and when there’s tartness, as in the Tom Yum Goong soup, it’s a complex product of limes and lime leaves, lemon grass and tamarind.
That soup had beads of chili oil floating on a thin hot-and-sour broth that was dense with scallions, mushroom and a single shrimp ($4). Vegetable spring rolls were neat little packets that we dipped in a saucer of sweet chili sauce and downed in two crunchy bites ($3). "it takes art to fold them with so few layers of dough, " said the TC.
He added chili vinegar to his fried jasmine rice, which was already flavored with fish sauce and dotted with chicken strips, Chinese broccli, egg, onions, scallions and tomatos ($8). I ordered beef basil, which the menu awarded three red stars for heat. The menu was right, but the sauce that bathed the beef, basil and green beans had just enough sweetness to temper the ferocity of bird’s-eye chilies ($10). In contrast, the two-starred green curry with chicken and vegetables ($9) had a gentle, perfumed fire. Full, but eager to taste more, we made plans to go back and try the $7 lunch.