They Say That Turns a Bushwick Smoke Shop into a Stylish, Experimental Thai Kitchen

By Scott Lynch

They Say That is located at 615 Wilson Avenue, between Schaefer and Decatur Streets, and is currently open on Monday through Thursday from 5:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., and on Friday and Saturday from 5:00 to 11:00 

The eastern end of Bushwick’s Wilson Avenue can feel kind of bleak, especially when the temperature’s in the teens, and a cold (ghostly?) wind is whipping down the street from Most Holy Cemetery. And that’s exactly why Budsakorn Thongnakkokkruad, a Bushwick resident who goes by Tiff, decided to open her first-ever restaurant over here.

“They Say That is sort of a creative outlet for me and my friends, a deep dive into my curiosity around food,” Tiff told Brooklyn Magazine. “I’ve worked in hospitality since I was really young, back in Brisbane, Australia, but after living in Bushwick for six years, it felt like the right moment to bring something to the neighborhood. This community has grown with me, it’s made me who I am, and I want to contribute back.” Judging by the full house in here on a recent freezing night, the locals are stoked she did.

Remedy hot pot, $29.95 (Photo by Scott Lynch)

The menu at They Say That is impressively broad, with familiar faces like drunken noodles, massaman curry, and tom yum soup mingling with the likes of crispy rice Thai prosciutto, pumpkin curry, and “disco fries,” with Thai toppings. Embracing inclusivity, my party ordered dishes from both the traditional and contemporary sides of the menu, and wolfed them gleefully amid the general hubbub of the place.

The “remedy” hot pot, infused with a dozen different spices, and described by Tiff as “a classic hangover-cure soup,” was indeed restorative, though more from our basic winter blahs than anything boozy. The rich, sour, Isan-style broth, kept warm by a little live-fire sterno-type thing, is loaded with glass noodles, crisp cabbage, fishy bits, and lots of impressively tender beef.

Panang curry mac & cheese with seared salmon, $26.95 (Photo by Scott Lynch)

Another winner was the Panang curry mac & cheese platter, so creamy it’s almost soupy-you’ll definitely want to use a spoon, with a hefty seared salmon filet soaking it up in the center. This is excellent comfort food, and plenty zingy. The basic pad Thai—billed as “the best PAD THAI ever!” on the menu—hits the spot as well, and, if you tack on the $9 grilled beef supplement, you get an enormous slab of sliced flank steak to play around with too.

Salted egg squid ink fried rice, $25.95 (Photo by Scott Lynch)

Panko crab rangoon, $12.95, and Two-mushroom larb, $15.95 (Photo by Scott Lynch)

Fried rice completists will want to check out the They Say That version, redolent with squid ink and accompanied by a mound of chewy cephalopods in a punchy salted egg sauce.

Two of our favorite dishes came from the snack section: The trio of crackling cream-cheese-and-crab-rangoon rolls, and the fiery two-mushroom larb. The fungi in the latter come from a local farm (specifically, Afterlife Mushrooms in Ridgewood), as does almost all the produce here. “Sustainable food practices matter,” said Tiff. “It’s important to know where ingredients come from. Who grows it and how it affects our bodies and the planet. This is one of our core values here.”

(Photo by Scott Lynch)

Booze-wise, there are carafes of New York sake for $18, cocktails for $16, ten-buck beers, and bottles of wine that top out at about $75. The space is cute, compact, and seats about 30, with all the design and decor done by Tiff, including the restaurant’s cool typography and chair logo.

“This project started a year ago,” she said. “Transforming a run-down smoke shop into a restaurant. The world around us is not looking well, and I’m very grateful to have this opportunity during this time. I feel so much joy that I get to do this, the whole journey, alongside friends who I love.”