I know several people who post here are fans of chef Seng Luangrath, owner of Padaek (formerly Bangkok Golden) in Falls Church, Padaek Arlington Ridge in Arlington, and Thip Khao in DC.
So, even though there were only two of us for lunch today, and we got to try only three dishes, I thought I’d go ahead and post a short report on Baan Mae, a restaurant in Shaw that is chef Luangrath’s latest venture.
The menu is very interesting, full of lots of dishes I’m not familiar with. The place has lively decor and we were seated in a window seat with a great view of the passing neighborhood walkers.
We settled on three dishes, two of which were big hits for us and one of which was just okay.
My favorite was the laphet thoke, the Burmese fermented tea leaf salad. This was an excellent rendition of this classic Burmese dish, much crunchier with nuts than I remember other versions of this dish being.
Also really good was the kimin paa, a panfried branzino in a zippy yellow sauce that was heavy on turmeric.
As you can see from the photo, we were seated by the fire extinguisher, so I guess we had the safest seat in the house.
The branzino came with a side of butterfly pea coconut rice, which was a surprising shade of light blue (not fully captured by the photo) – my wife used this like sticky rice to scoop all of the delicious sauce. The branzino was fried beautifully, with crispy skin.
The clunker of the meal was what the (QR code only) menu calls Baan Mae “Baba Ghanoush.” This is a roasted eggplant salad with ground pork, served with friend pork skins and veggies for dipping. Toni and I both found this to be pretty bland and we couldn’t discern any ground pork at all. Maybe we were subconsciously expecting some tahini, given the name of the dish. We would not order this again.
So, obviously, three dishes is not enough to judge a restaurant by, but the initial meal had two highlights and a menu that looks well worth more exploration.
