Thai BKK is an East Harlem staple, offering aggressive and beautiful to look at Thai standards at discount prices — though one isn’t permitted to eat on the premises. Eater NY found a bus bench just down the street, which proved the perfect place to enjoy the lush, perfectly cooked drunken noodles as traffic whizzed by on Lexington Avenue heading south.

Hot Box is a closet of a space on the Upper East Side with exceptional Thai food from Bangkok, Phuket, and Chiang Mai at bargain prices. From the first category comes a splendid krapow kai daow, which might qualify as the Thai dish of the year in New York City, featuring a mound of chile-laced pork in a sweet dark sauce, fluffy rice, and a runny fried egg:incendiary and delicious.

This stylish newcomer is often packed with diners here for its sophisticated cocktails and its mostly southern-Thai fare. Get the coconut puff stick and seared scallops, the spicy sator goong with shrimp and pork, and the garlic ribs.

Lum Lum is the work of Sommy and Mo Hensawang, who hail from the Ayutthaya province north of Bangkok. Some of the recipes are their mother’s, including an arresting squid soup thickened with ink. Fresh herbs are heaped upon the plates and made spectacular use of in rice casseroles, salads, and noodles, and the spice level is off the charts unless you request otherwise.

The Thonglor neighborhood is the East Village of Bangkok, a hopping area known for its art galleries, Japanese restaurants, spas, and hot dog stands. Astoria’s Thonglor changed its name from Red Basil Thai not long ago, upping its food game to include lots of crispy duck and whole fish dishes, of which red snapper is king. Got the picture? A somewhat upscale place where your money is well spent on premium ingredients, with the setting nothing special for a Thai restaurant. There’s one in Hell’s Kitchen, too.

The food at this Woodside gem hails from southernmost Thailand adjacent to Malaysia. That means creamy coconut milk curries presented as soups that feature egg noodles instead of rice, and a Thai-leaning version of roti canai, possessing a chunkier, more vegetable-filled dipping sauce, with a rare beef version available. Lots of seafood on the menu, and all meat is halal at this institution representing the cuisine of the southern region’s Muslim minority.

It’s been more than 30 years since a modest Thai bakery in Woodside started by Sripraphai Tipmanee morphed into this full-blown restaurant. The lengthy menu is all over the place, listing Isan sour sausage, mango sticky rice, and umpteen curry and noodle choices, nearly all of which are good. Sit in the leafy rear garden, and admire the cascades of flowers.

While the city has enjoyed a rich collection of Isan restaurants from the northeastern section of Thailand bordering the Mekong River, Zaab Zaab plunges deeper with novel dishes and organ meats galore. Located amidst Elmhurst’s thriving Thai Town in a small, colorful space, Zaab Zaab’s menu includes duck larb, roasted tilapia, and tom hang — a steamed assortment of cow tripe, spleen, and intestine with two dipping sauces. A branch in Williamsburg concentrates on fish, while a newer stall in Market 57, James Beard food hall, offers greatest hits.

This utilitarian, budget-friendly lunch and dinner cash-only spot serves some superb regional Thai dishes, like duck larb, morning glory with crispy pork, an offal-infused guay jub noodle soup, and more.

Sired by Noho’s legendary Fish Cheeks, this restaurant cultivates a supper club atmosphere out of the 60s, and rolls out many impressive dishes, some unexpected, in artistic presentations. Check out garlic fried rice with hog jowl, served in a bronze salver; or the crisp, flattened, and deboned branzino, accompanied by a zippy herbal relish. The cocktails are head-turners too: Get one with a branded ice cube.

What a surprise when this massive Thai restaurant set down just south of Union Square, decorated like a Bangkok outdoor market with a lottery ticket window, fake electrical poles and pigeons, and all sorts of dining spaces on two levels. The cooks are from southern Thailand, and several dishes originated there, including khao yum, a refreshing salad that will knock your eyes out with its colorful ingredients. In line with the over-the-top decor, Bangkok street food can also be found.

This East Village Thai concept, steps above St. Marks, features dumplings inspired by classic dishes, including a vegan Massaman curry dumpling. All dumplings come in fours, with a choice of four dipping sauces. While the concept sounds daft, the dumplings are great and unlike the dumplings served in other Thai restaurants.

Don’t miss tum strawberry, a salad of strawberries and husk cherries seasoned with lime juice, chile paste, fish sauce, bird’s eye chiles, and Vietnamese mint, for a delightful multivalent wallop of flavor. This East Village newcomer offers a broad array of invented and long-ago historic dishes. The crab omelet is a luncheon dish chock full of crustacean, while a southern duck curry is served Malaysian style, with a peanut-enriched sauce, and rotis instead rice.

Opened two years ago by Karuna Wiwattanakantang and Norawat Margsiri, who previously ran a Thai restaurant of the same name in Boulder, Colorado, Terra Thai specializes in complete Thai meals at bargain prices. Their focus is the street food of Bangkok, and one wonderful meal includes basil chicken, chewy and pungent, served with rice, pumpkin, and a poached egg. A vegetarian version of pad Thai is another good choice.

If you want to try the food of southern Thailand’s Malay Peninsula, check out MayRee. On a darkened block, the premises is similarly subdued in its lighting scheme, and jars of spirits infused with Thai flavorings line up on a bar at the rear. Roti nam keang, a pair of flaky flatbreads served with a bowl of peanutty chicken curry, is similar to the roti canai found in area’s Malaysian restaurants.

Thai Café was the first restaurant of its type to open in north Brooklyn, and now there are at least a dozen, of which Amarin seems to be the best. Don’t expect a wide range of regional dishes, but a solid list of old favorites that includes a full roster of curries and stir-fries, plus a pleasingly diverse list of appetizers. Among them is a wonderful quartet of fish cakes red with chile paste.

Like the name says, this Williamsburg Thai restaurant specializes in noodles, the last of the great Plant Love House empire remaining. It offers Isan, southern Thai, and occasional Chinese Thai dishes from Bangkok, as conceived by owners Benjaporn Chua, Preawpun Sutipayakul, and Jirawat Sutipayakul. Everyday dishes run to duck, blood boat noodles, and spicy chicken wings with a sweet dipping sauce.

Under owner Prasneeya Praditpoj and chefs Chetkangwan Thipruetree and Sunisa Nitmai, Tong (“gold”) was one of those brave pandemic debuts when it opened three years ago in what looks like an ex-garage near the border of Bushwick and Ridgewood. It specializes in kub klaem — small drinking snacks, including grilled pork jowl with a tamarind-chile glaze, green papaya salad heaped with a lattice of dried catfish, and smoked eggplant with a boiled egg and coconut jam on top.

Located right on hopping Vanderbilt Avenue, where a dining area in the middle of the street often banishes cars, Nuaa Table offers the familiar cuisine with lots of colorful bistro flourishes, along with inventive dishes and a section of street food, including lots of noodles. A Bangkok stir-fry of pork bites and basil comes topped with a runny deep-fried egg, while a banana blossom salad packs a good deal of heat and sourness, served with greens and herbs for wrapping bites.

This hidden gem is the best Thai restaurant in Park Slope, though the neighborhood has long had many agreeable places with uninspiring menus. Bangkok Degree is presided over by Chusak Srithongsul and Wirot Sirimatrasit: The first ran a restaurant in Thailand showcasing grandmother recipes, while the second is a veteran of the Elmhurst Thai scene. The result is a menu with street food from Bangkok, regional recipes from around the country, and invented dishes.