Bamboo Thai High-class Thai freshness

Packing enough delicious shoots to lure in most of the world's remaining panda population, Bamboo Thai has sprouted up in gigantic digs downtown, where they'll serve high-end Northern Thai and Laotian eats in a swank, candlelit setting.

There's bamboo all over this joint, and it serves the dual purpose of being pretty and splitting four large areas: a windowside seating zone, the huge bar, a family-style dining nook, and an intimate, art-filled corner spot for private dining.

Lunch and dinner entrees use farm-fresh ingredients and run the gamut from pineapple fried rice stuffed into its eponymous fruit, this Pad Prik King w/ bell peppers and red curry paste, and Kao Mun Gal w/ steamed chicken & coconut rice, or what his buddies call Jerry when he wears his sexy bikini in Hawaii.

The two-page cocktail menu features the pictured Samurai Showdown w/ Hennessy & Grand Marnier (the samurais are from popular rap songs, apparently), and the whipped cream-topped Geisha A Go Go with cane rum.

Happy hour goes down twice daily -- 3-6p & 9p-close -- and features crazy-discounted grub like $2 wontons, $3.50 pad see ew, and yum woon sen pork at a price that won't make you want to bamboo shoot yourself ($4).