{"id":362002,"date":"2026-10-01T17:30:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T17:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/362002\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T17:30:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T17:30:17","slug":"restaurant-review-ugly-baby-in-williamsburg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/362002\/","title":{"rendered":"Restaurant Review: Ugly Baby in Williamsburg"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vide the spice bros. You notice them as soon as you walk in. Full tables \u2014 a foursome here, a sextet there \u2014 egging each other on, dapping each other up. They ratchet their bites from spicy to spicier to spiciest. Their mecca is Ugly Baby<\/a>, the longtime Carroll Gardens Thai spot that reopened this year in a bigger space off the BQE<\/a> in that other bro paradise, Williamsburg. Here, spice is a bragging right and a promise. A server described the menu\u2019s three sections \u2014 \u201cThe Laughs,\u201d \u201cThe Cries,\u201d \u201cThe Ugly\u201d \u2014 as progressing from mild to incinerating. \u201cYou enjoy and are happy,\u201d he explained, gesturing from top to bottom, \u201cor you have fun and die.\u201d This is a joke, barely.<\/p>\n

Spice chauvinism has a long history, but it has never been as present as it is in today\u2019s era of Hot Ones, the digital wings-and-chat show that launched just before the original Ugly Baby opened in 2017, has grown to become an $80 million enterprise and is now a required stop on the A-list celebrity press tour. The time was ripe for Ugly Baby, which closed in 2024, to return, refreshed, in a larger space in Williamsburg. Its old space, in Carroll Gardens, is now in the hands of former staffers who opened Hungry Thirsty<\/a> last year. Hungry Thirsty birthed Manhattan\u2019s Hungry Spicy<\/a>, an even hotter sibling in Chelsea, in July, where dishes are rated on a four-flame scale: one wisp for \u201clowkey spicy,\u201d ascending to \u201creal spicy,\u201d \u201cburning hot,\u201d and \u201cno mercy.\u201d To judge from the lines for a table, recreational spice chasing is now big enough to support all three.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to call the ambulance two times,\u201d a server at Hungry Spicy warned us about the menu\u2019s hottest dish, kua kling, a four-flame southern-Thai specialty of ground beef and curry paste topped with a fried egg. Two tables over, a couple of guys were perspiring madly, one of them slumped backward in the booth, while a woman at their table filmed their demise on her phone.<\/p>\n

I enjoyed the dishes I tried at Hungry Spicy and am happy to report no ambulance was necessary. For balancing flavor with heat, though, there\u2019s no beating the original. I made for Ugly Baby, where, aware of my own limitations, I brought the biggest spice bro I know, a blonde woman from the Midwest whose bona fides are sometimes doubted and who has a long history proving her opps wrong. (Spice bro is a gender-neutral term.) She once won a prize for finishing a fried rice at UnTable<\/a>, another high-heat Thai standout in Carroll Gardens.<\/p>\n

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\n Some dishes at Ugly Baby look spicier than they are (like the catfish, top-left). Most, however, are just as hot as you’d hope. Hugo Yu.\n <\/p>\n

\n Some dishes at Ugly Baby look spicier than they are (like the catfish, top-left). Most, however, are just as hot as you’d hope. Hugo Yu.\n <\/p>\n

The good news is that Ugly Baby, despite the long shadow of its reputation, does not require a living will or a DNR. Chef Sirichai Sreparplarn, once again at the helm, calibrates pleasure with pain, his dishes radiating the superfecta of herb, lime, garlic, and fishiness alongside brute-force spice, even in the most perilous. You can ease in with no spice at all, a plate of battered pumpkin fries ready to be dragged through tamarind sauce and to unseat the sweet-potato fry\u2019s diner supremacy. From there, pick your way through the mid-tier spice of the \u201cCries\u201d section, which is generally tolerable for all but the most cautious, though that varies dish by dish. A vegan option, a ruddy, massaman-ish coconut curry with eggplant and Malay-style pineapple, is a true medium. Crispy catfish in dry red curry, which arrives in glistening hunks scattered with fried basil leaves, looks more dangerous than it is: Despite the fire-red chiles lurking throughout, it\u2019s more sweet than hot, like a Thai take on General Tso\u2019s. (This is a compliment.) And don\u2019t miss, but also don\u2019t underestimate, a seemingly surprising combination of hulled strawberries with dried shrimp, tiny red buttons of sliced chile, and fish sauce. They look innocent, these berries, until the heat hits you, after the sweet and the funk, a secret agent, a hot betrayal.<\/p>\n

My bro was making her way through these happy mediums without a hair out of place; we summited to the \u201cUgly\u201d with eagerness (her) and trepidation (me). I\u202fwas heating up inside and out: Under the bright lights of the dining room, bouncing off the lurid Technicolor walls, the heat seemed amplified. Spice accrues, and the saucy dregs of starters on the plate were infusing even manageable dishes such as ground pork belly with shrimp paste, its caramel sweetness turning live and electric. A kang prik curry of pork leg and\u202fpork rinds had a sour, herbal perfume and unfolding layers of funk, though the meat itself was tough. (It has since been replaced by a combo of oxtail and beef tongue.) Then the menu\u2019s spiciest dish, a red-curry stir-fry known as pad ped, arrived.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis one builds,\u201d the bro said approvingly. \u201cIt\u2019s a grower, not a shower.\u201d A\u202fplatter of tiny cubes of skirt steak mixed with thin slips of what the menu calls \u201choneycomb\u201d (as in tripe) was absolutely spattered with chile seeds. I\u2019ve now had it two times, once when it came out as the first dish and once as the last. (The restaurant was still working through some early jitters.) Last is best: When eaten before other dishes, the pad ped effectively blows out your palate for anything else. But as the pinnacle, it manages to dance between sultriness and outright fire. The experience \u2014 I\u202fcan think of no other word for it \u2014 unfolds. True daredevils may wish for more: \u201cI want to feel scared, even just for a moment, and I never did,\u201d my bro said. I\u202fwas proud not only to endure but to enjoy it alongside my 14th glass of water. (Servers know to make these cooling rounds; plain white rice, another sop, is regularly replenished.)<\/p>\n

We\u2019d been hazed and survived. The bill arrived without request or ceremony. There is no dessert.<\/p>\n

\n Scratchpad\n <\/p>\n

Ugly Baby<\/p>\n

\u00a0364 Grand St., at Marcy Ave., Williamsburg; uglybabynyc.com<\/p>\n

To Beat the Heat
Unlike the earlier Baby, this one has a full bar\u00a0and offers a connoisseur\u2019s selection of craft beers and ciders.<\/p>\n

Work-in-Progress
Dishes are being added as the restaurant gets up to speed. On my visits, some promised items weren\u2019t yet available.<\/p>\n

A Blistering Pace
Owing to high demand, Ugly Baby\u2019s management mandates strict time limits for tables. They\u2019re enforced, too.<\/p>\n

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