As fellow Roadfooder Doggydaddy mentioned in a recent RFDigest comment, New Haven has a preponderance of Thai restaurants on or near Chapel Street downtown. There’s Indochine (1180 Chapel), Pad Thai (1170 Chapel), Thai Taste (1151 Chapel), Thai Pan Asian (1150 Chapel), and Bangkok Gardens (172 York)—and four of these are on the same block. Food-wise, one almost can’t go wrong, as all of them are delicious and reasonably priced, but one rises above the rest as my favorite: Bangkok Gardens. On this visit, Hanna, Mike, and I began with an appetizer of Golden Bags ($5.95, above), which are little fried tofu pouches of minced shrimp, chicken, straw mushrooms, water chestnuts, and scallions. The bags are tied with edible seaweed, and they’re served with a spicy sweet dipping sauce. Hanna then ordered Yellow Curry ($5.95, yellow curry in coconut milk with chicken, bamboo shoots, and green peppers), Mike chose Chaiya Noodles ($6.95, shrimp and scallops cooked with yellow noodles, bean sprouts, and scallions in a red curry sauce), and I picked my Thai stand-by, the ever spicy Drunken Noodles ($5.95, wide rice noodles stir-fried with tofu, onions, peppers, and basil leaves). All dishes were scrumptious, and we were hard-pressed to finish them all. If we had room for dessert, we’d’ve ordered the Mango Delight ($4.95, sweet purple sticky rice with fresh mangoes). Great Thai food is easy to find in New Haven, and Bangkok Gardens is among the finest.