Morningside Heights, like the rest of New York City, has a fantastic variety of cuisines to choose from. Sometimes though, your craving for a good, hot meal will only be satisfied by food that is at once sweet, spicy, and sour—in a word, Thai. But choosing a Thai restaurant from the many in the area and selecting just the right dish can be a tiresome and difficult task. To make your life slightly easier, here is a comparison of three popular neighborhood Thai restaurants.

This is a quick and easy recipe that satisfies any desire for hot, spicy, Thai food and is fantastic with a bowl of hot rice or eaten, as it is traditionally, in lettuce cups. The majority of the ingredients are available in the supermarkets around campus, and the fish sauce is available at M2M. If you do not take to very spicy food, use one chili instead of two.

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon vegetable oil
2 red bird eye chillies
375 g minced beef
1 tablespoon Thai fish sauce
4 spring onions (without dark green,
finely chopped)
Zest and juice of 1 lime
3-4 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander

Directions:

1. Put oil in a frying pan on medium heat.
2. When warm, add chillies and cook for several minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Add beef and turn up the heat.
4. Break up mince and cook for 3-4 minutes, until all traces of redness are removed.
5. Add fish sauce, and continue to stir until the liquids evaporate.
6. Turn off heat. Stir in spring onions, zest, juice of the lime, and most of the coriander.
7. Turn into bowl and sprinkle remaining coriander.