THE GREEN PAPAYA SALAD was a showstopper. That is not a sentence I thought I’d ever write. The dish often plays second fiddle in a Thai meal, a bracing, crisp bite, the counterpoint to creamy curry and pad thai. But here it is: a bell-shaped mound of papaya—a riotous, juice-drenched tangle of green shreds pounded with fiery rings of red chile, tomatoes, peanuts, briny dried shrimp no larger than a grain of rice, and the spent halves of limes that surrendered their juices to this amazingness.
I guess it’s no surprise that this salad and its many variations should steal the show, because if
