Donsak Thai has been around for ages on Connecticut Avenue at Calvert and we should berate ourselves for never going before.
It's a small simple space with no more than maybe 15 tables and you do need to reserve, even on a Monday as we did since the place was pretty full. We arrived to monster size menus and lots of dishes and we asked our server if she would give us help and she offered up some great ideas that really loved.
I started with a passion fruit margarita which I asked her not to make too sweet and it was perfect although a salt rim would have been nice. Will liked his Moscow Mule and then we chose a bottle of refreshing Pratsch 2021 Gruner Veltliner as it's a wine that works well with spicy food. I do need to apologize as I only took some photos and they are quite bad, so nothing on Facebook!
The food here is not that spicy although the appetizer salad of Larb Gai make from ground chicken, red onion, scallion and rice powder did have a nice kick to it. The Thai dumplings came with a sweet soy sauce and were made of crab, shrimp, pork and carrots and were pop in your mouth delicious, while the Duck Rolls were really tasty made with scallion, cucumber and drizzled with Peking sauce; alas one of mine had a huge piece of gristle in it.
All of the main courses were very tasty and we decided to choose one spicy dish from the special Essay menu, a particular type of Thai cuisine that was new to all of us. Our server suggested the Nham Kao Tod which was very crispy rice with fermented pork sausage, fresh ginger, red onion, cilantro, scallion and roasted peanuts and a spicy lime dressing. Its only fault was that it came lukewarm, b ut the taste was superb and a very different type of dish from standard Thai cuisine. The Red Curry Duck had coconut milk, pineapple, tomato, red pepper and basil and was probably the best dish as you can pour the sauce all over the rice. Donsak Crispy Chicken was breaded and served in chili paste with stir-fry green beans, basil and red pepper.
We enjoyed a small bottle of Haku Tsuru Sayuri Nigori Sake which was cloudy and a tad creamy and most refreshing. No room for dessert, but what a great place for yummy Thai food, or maybe take-out next time!
