Thai Roots Take

GALANGA 149 W. 4TH ST., (BETW. 6TH AVE. & MACDOUGAL ST.), 212-228-4267 V BAR 225 SULLIVAN ST., (BETW. W. 3RD & BLEECKER STS.), 212-253-5740

A SLICE of green bell pepper from a Thai basil stir-fry can blow your mind. When the vegetable is cooked only enough to soften its natural bitterness, and that quiet edge is rounded out by a glimmer of anise from the purple basil, infused at daredevilish heat in a wok where a base note of salty fish sauce vaults red chili into position for a structured burn, you taste that pepper in technicolor. The flavor of teaming bounty in dynamic balance—this is the Thai chef's magic.

I got a glimpse of it at Galanga, a new Thai restaurant on W. 4th St. The dish was duck basil ($12.50), a house specialty. The meat had been roasted almost to perfection. Which is to say that on some but not all slices the fat had gone as crispy as a quality french fry. The peppers were as described above. And Galanga's house rice, so sticky a toddler could eat it with chopsticks, proved a worthy platform for that synesthesia-inducing sauce. This was more than a Thai stir-fry. It was a Thai experience.

Such a thing is hard to find in Manhattan. I wonder: Why isn't it considered axiomatic that decent foreign-cuisine restaurant scenes grow up only in the presence (be it current or historical) of a corresponding immigrant community? One could hardly ask for more proof. Ever gone out for Italian food in Seattle? Or tasted what passes for a bagel in the Midwest? Then, on the other hand, consider Indonesian food in Amsterdam, the Middle-Eastern restaurants of Brooklyn or the array of Mexican and Japanese delights available in Los Angeles. Manhattan doesn't have a Thai community, so it doesn't have great Thai restaurants either.

Galanga's duck basil suggested an exception, but the rule had already reared its ugly head by the time the dish arrived. Our meal began with bland summer rolls ($5). Crunchy with fresh vegetables and dices of shrimp, cut like a sushi roll and drizzled with sticky tamarind sauce, they were not unpleasant—just fathoms more shallow than their potential.

Tom yum soup ($3.50) came closer, yet still not close enough to taste it. Ideally, this deceptively thin stuff has an effect on the body close to that of a sudden spike in exterior temperature and humidity. Here, the interplay of lime, lemongrass, mushroom and chili paste felt less like a swelter than a slovenly breeze. At least the shrimp in the soup were fresh.

Meeting the minimal requirements is enough to recommend Galanga, considering its location. It's not only on an island devoid of top-level Thai—it's also in spitting distance of the W. 4th St. station, a region where anyone might find themselves spitting after choosing a cheap restaurant at random. Galanga has excellent service. The room is well-lit and devoid, at least so far, of bridge-and-tunnel yahoos.

The appetizer to order is papaya salad ($6.95). Its lime-chili dressing isn't so timid as the soup, and the pounded string beans and shreds of crunchy young fruit match that boldness. Also, the springtime feel of unripe papaya sets the stage for the fireworks of Galanga's wok-tossed specialties.

Find another of those in the "Noodles" section of the menu. Drunken noodle ($7.95 or $8.95, depending on your choice of meat) is billed as "street style" and conveys an elemental grace. Chinese broccoli and fresh basil are allowed flavor independent of the sauce, for which extra-wide, flat rice noodles are sponges. That sauce is chili and onion in oil, and a lot of salt, but not table salt. More like salt, cubed. The extra dimensions are the stripped-down essence of nam pla at work. A crucial ingredient in every Southeastern Asian cuisine, this fish sauce is made from fermented anchovies and smells rank until cooked, when its own characteristics disappear and reform in secret corners of whatever else takes the heat along with it.

Seafood Phucket style ($13.95) offered a lesser version of the technique applied to duck basil. Instead of basil and peppers, it spread carrot and celery along a top layer of flavors, with grade-B shellfish and muted chili paste comfortably underneath. A unmitigated disappointment was our selection from Galanga's "Curries" section. "Country-Style Curry" ($8.50 or $9.50) featured cauliflower, basil and some root vegetable that might well have been the restaurant's mustard-tangy namesake, but something must have gone awry, as the dish amounted to little more than a watery cabbage stew.

New York's Thai community, by the way, is in Woodside, Queens.

SOMETHING YOU'RE EVEN less likely to stumble upon than a passable restaurant near the W. 4th stop is a serviceable bar in that neighborhood, NYU's playground. So it was fairly shocking, just after finishing research on wine bars for my last column, to find V Bar. The place is right around the corner from the avoid-at-all-costs strip of Bleecker St. bars, and it's a keeper.

An extensive beer list precludes it, technically, from the wine bar category, but V Bar's by-the-glass offerings are diverse and winningly priced. The vibe is heroically accommodating: all the seats are stools, either at the bar or a long table as high as the bar, with a chessboard on it, flanking a full bookshelf. The clientele is more young-professorial than undergrad. V Bar is open all day, serving pressed sandwiches and coffees listed on a giant blackboard menu. All of this reads as a clear invitation to linger and do what you will. That, to me, is what makes a wine bar. Because left to my own devices, without a time constraint, I'll try a bunch of wines. My V Bar picks are the soft-yet-rich supertuscan ($8) and the orvieto ($6), a white so crisp it seemed almost poised to go sparkling.