Bangkok Center Grocery

Chilli paste: It's what's for breakfast.

Spread on toast, it looked like apple butter, but Maesri brand chilli paste for bread (8 oz.; $1.75) gave me a whiff of fish sauce and dried shrimp before zinging my throat with tamarind. That's all good, but I wish it weren't at odds with my morning coffee. In the afternoon, Maesri's nam pla wan (Thai-style fruit dip; 8 oz.; $2.50), offers much the same ingredient list in chunkier form; I like to spoon it on slices of mutsu apple.

Most days, Bangkok Center Grocery is simply a small but well-curated specialty store, but at a recent Taste of Chinatown, festival-goers were treated to fresh-made papaya salad (prepped and served below; $1) that walked a lip-tingling tightrope between chili heat and fish-sauce sourness.

On another occasion, I was poking through the preserved bananas, catfish crisps, durian chips, and other snacks when the lady behind the counter offered me a taste of Thai Tonya brand tom yum crisp (not shown; 150 g.; $6) — a loosely packed seafood brittle of dried shrimp and squid, cashews, kaffir lime leaf, lemongrass, sliced onion and garlic, sugar, red pepper, fish sauce, and lemon juice. Fabulous blend of flavors; too bad it's available only occasionally.

Bangkok Center Grocery
104 Mosco St. (Mulberry-Mott Sts.)
212-349-1979