If your idea of a good Thai meal involves fruity cocktail drinks served in cartoonish, neon-colored surroundings, then Nava Thai in Wheaton is not the restaurant for you. There are no punny names, no sushi bar, and no fried bananas here, just excellent, authentic Thai food. Yes, the ambiance leaves something to be desired (the walls are a nauseating shade of green), and the location is less than glamorous (practically hidden in the back of a Thai grocery store). But if you want to eat Thai food designed for the Thai--not the American--palate, Nava Thai is the place to be.

Nava Thai's menu contains a lot of dishes that will look unfamiliar to most diners, and a lot of the Americanized Thai standards are conspicuously missing. For appetizers, spring rolls and satay skewers are replaced by puckery, spicy salads. The Hot Bean Thread Salad is a pile of slippery glass noodles, thin slices of chicken, celery, tomato, and shrimp dressed in an abundant amount of lime juice and chili flakes. This salad seems fairly simple at first glance, but the flavors are bright, bold, and surprisingly fiery. For those with a lower heat tolerance, it is advisable to order a glass of Thai iced tea. Nava Thai's tea is not too sweet, and the milk helps cut down on the spice.

Kanom Niew (Alicia Mazzara)

 

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Crispy Pork and Chinese Broccoli with black bean sauce is a delicate take on some familiar Chinese-inspired flavors. Unlike Chinese black bean sauce, which is usually thick and pungent, the Thai version is a light, sweet broth studded with little bits of salty, fermented soybean. The pork here is skin-on, the fat cut in a cross hatch pattern and fried up like a pork rind. It is surely fatty, but it doesn't feel greasy or heavy in the mouth.

Crispy Duck Krapow is available at other Thai restaurants in the area, but this version makes them seem dull in comparison. Big hunks of duck meat are tossed in a sticky, spicy sauce and topped with a dusting of fried, translucent basil leaves. What makes Nava Thai's duck so good is the skin, which covers every piece of meat in this dish. It sucks up the sauce like a sponge, but still crackles under your teeth with every bite.

Perhaps the most notable item on the menu is the Floating Market soup, a volcanic brew thickened with pig's blood and topped with fried pork rinds. Named for the soup sold out of long boats in Thailand's dwindling floating markets, it is singular in its complexity and heat. The broth somehow manages to taste simultaneously sweet, sour, salty, and spicy, the flavors at once distinct and in concert. Lime juice gives it a brightness and a tang, and blood adds a iron-y, mineral depth. The soup is also a feast of textures, with chewy rice noodles offset by the airy crunch of pork skin. And let's not forget the heat. It sneaks up on you, the patchwork of flavors initially distracting the eater from the warming sensation that is spreading over the back of the throat. We ordered it at full strength (denoted as three lightning bolts on the menu), and by the end of the bowl, I was a sweating, bleary-eyed, runny-nosed mess. Each spoonful was simultaneously torturous and magical; it is a soup that is both addictive and punishing.

Even familiar standards look and taste different at Nava Thai. Pad Thai (there is only one kind at Nava Thai) comes with shrimp, bean sprouts, smoked tofu, crushed peanuts, and a wedge of lime. But the noodles look different--they are darker, sweeter, and deliciously charred. One of the waiters explained that Nava Thai uses tamarind juice in their Pad Thai, while many restaurants opt for vinegar because it is cheaper. The tamarind is what gives these noodles their rich caramelization and slightly sticky texture.

Nava Thai serves only one dessert: mango with sticky rice. At first glance, there is little to distinguish Nava Thai's version from any other Thai restaurant, until you take the first bite and it becomes apparent that this fruit is unlike anything available in a supermarket. Nava Thai's mango is intensely fragrant, juicy, and tastes like a cross between ripe apples, peaches, and pineapples. It is so succulent and unusual that the accompanying rice and coconut milk is almost unnecessary.

The restaurant also offers a small selection of prepackaged snacks, mostly little cookies and gooey, rice flour-based sweets. A few bucks will buy you a plastic clam shell of Kanom Niew, a mild flavored, do-it-yourself dessert. Pale green strips of soft rice noodle are rolled in unsweetened coconut flakes and come with two tiny containers of Rice Krispies and cane syrup. The result is mild and faintly sweet, a quiet finish to a meal of otherwise rollicking flavors.

Entrees $8 to $12. Appetizers and desserts $5 to $7.

Nava Thai
11315 Fern St.
Wheaton, MD
240-430-0495
Metro: Wheaton

Hours
Thursday - Tuesday, 11:00 am - 9:00 pm (closed Wednesdays)