The Best Asian Restaurants Across The Country Slideshow

All the standard Thai dishes are done very well at this well-known storefront restaurant in Thai Town, but the southern Thai specialties, many of which are found nowhere else in America, are the real draw. Try the oxtail soup, crisp catfish salad, softshell crabs with yellow curry, sea bass with caramelized garlic, and whatever else proprietor Sarintip "Jazz" Singsanong recommends even the beef curry called khua kling Phat Lung, quite possibly the spiciest dish in L.A.

Chef Tim Cushman brings innovative sushi and related new-Japanese fare (hamachi sashimi with banana pepper mousse, venison tataki with shaved foie torchon) to his menu with imagination and flair, serving these and other truly wonderful dishes, accompanied by a large choice of excellent sake and wine, in an understated dining room whose simplicity belies the complexity of flavors on the plate.

This past June, former Times critic Sam Sifton pegged Masa down to three stars from the four given to it by his predecessor Frank Bruni. Given that his reasons seemed to be that they asked him to wait outside when he showed up early, some of the dishes werent explained, and the staff didnt pay him much attention after dessert, you may want to take a magnifying glass with you to discern the "wrinkles in Masa's fine silk." By all accounts, Masa's toro-stuffed maki rolls are still inspiring the lip twitching and eye rolling that characterized Bruni's 2004 review, establishing it as the premier sushi spot in New York City, if not the U.S. The swanky Time Warner Center setting and elaborate omakase-only menu is accompanied by a high bar for entry: the price. At $450 per person before tip, you're looking at a bill that can easily total more than $1,000 for two.

When Andy Ricker opened Pok Pok in 2008, he took the Pacific Northwest (and many of the nations most devoted eaters) by storm with his uniquely refined approach to Southeast Asian street food. In fact, his Vietnamese-inspired chicken wings and boldly flavored array of house specialties are in such hot demand that Ricker opened a location dedicated specifically to wings in New York City this year. To top it off, the James Beard Foundation named Ricker the best chef in the Northwest in 2011.