Thai Box Lunches on the Lower East Side

When Erika Chou and Tom Naumsuwan opened Wayla, a Thai restaurant with a garden on Forsyth Street about three months ago, they were also preparing a double storefront upstairs for a takeout shop. Little Wayla opened last week, offering an array of home-style dishes. “Tom wanted a place where he could serve the food his mother made for the family and sold in the markets,” Ms. Chou said. Combinations of two or three items — like chile-flecked ground chicken larb, marinated pork jerky with coriander and assertive stir-fried spinach with garlic — are served over plain rice, greens or with trim banana leaf packets of maroon sticky rice. Shelves hold imported Thai groceries, including fish sauce and Lay’s sweet basil-flavored potato chips.

Little Wayla, 100 Forsyth Street (Grand Street), littlewayla.com.

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