Secret Bangkok
Sappe, West Village
RESTAURANTS • First Word
Ken, the bartender at Sappe, a new restaurant on the grim stretch of W. 14th St. near 8th Ave. from the owners of the (truly excellent) East Village Thai spot Soothr, asked me two questions about halfway through my recent lunch at the bar: Have I ever been to Bangkok, and do I like train stations? I answered yes to the first and shrugged at the second. “Come here,” he said.
I followed him across the room, where wood-paneled walls that glow with colored lights and a mirrored ceiling create a true Bangkok vibe. He opened a door, and a huge, high-ceilinged room unfolded. This back room — operating inside Sappe as a secret bar — is designed to evoke the inside of Hua Lamphong train station in Bangkok, complete with authentic reproductions of signs and a domed ceiling.
Pronounced “sep,” Sappe puts the spotlight on the cuisine of Isan, a region in northeastern Thailand that has been the focus of many new Thai restaurants in New York over the last decade. The menu includes requisite Isan staples — green papaya salad, larb, and a handful of variations on spicy noodle soups. But there’s another side of the menu dedicated to something decidedly different: ping yang, skewered meat cooked over charcoal. Chicken liver, beef tongue, chicken skin, pork belly, medium-rare steak, and garlicky pork sausage are a few of the standouts. (Hence, the transportation connection: The streets surrounding Bangkok’s iconic main train station are crammed with food stalls selling that same style of grilled meat on a stick.)
They’ve put a lot of thought into the cocktail program with drinks marrying mezcal, whisky, and other spirits with Southeast Asian fruits, all of which are ideally suited for sipping while grazing on Thai drinking snacks and dreaming of that trip you keep putting off to Thailand — by rail, of course. –David Farley