The first meal of the new year was with a friend in Columbia Heights here in DC where Thip Kaho opened almost 7 years ago, and I had wanted to get to multiple times. On arrival at 630pm the place was about half full and there were not too many servers. Within an hour the place was jammed and sadly they really needed some additional help. Other than that, the food was wonderful, spicy and a real different take on the normal Thai and Vietnamese SouthEast Asian brands we have around so much.
The wine list here has one white and one red, and the white is arefreshing Sauvignon Blanc from Domaine de l'Hermoniere in Touraine that has great acidity and stands up well to spice. Spice is an important word here and generally they seem to take down the levels a notch for the non-locals....I could have easily enjoyed a tad more fire.
The Tam Som is one of the spicy (from fish sauce and chilis)green papaya salads (there are some FB fotos) with green beans and peanuts and is a great way to start the meal as the mains tend to be meaty or tofu centric or with noodles, so this was refreshing, spicy and set the mood. The spiciest dish we had was the Mee Kathi a huge bowl of curry soup thick with thick rice noodles and chicken (it also comes with shrimp). This is a meal in itself, and we split the bowl and still had leftovers. The two mains we shared were very different form the Asian dishes we know. The Khao Niew Siin is a kind of BBQ beef jerky, and all the dishes are served with an adorable basket of sticky rice that could possibly be gooier! The meat was in large pieces and a tad difficult to manage as you only get a fork and spoon, but the spoon can double as a knife when needed! The other main was one of the tastiest pork belly dishes ever and is called Muu Som made from rice-cured sour pork belly served with mushrooms and carries a nice kick from chilis.
We could not fathom dessert as we had doggie bags already but would love to return again to try the many different dishes that will surely warm you up on a cold wintry night!
