We have dined at Chef Seng Luangrath's now very famous Laotian dining spots in the DC area and last year did take-out from the smaller Padeak location in Arlington, but this time we headed to the larger and a tad classier restaurant in Arlington Ridge which is a very nice spot with a great menu and our server Joy was MORE than a joy to be around. She helped us choose dishes and when I asked to taste one of the wines, she brought two wines to try and then poured a glass and said, "oh I'll just leave the rest of the bottle for you!" That made me very happy. The wine was a dry Villa Wolf Riesling!
Will & Michael loved the BeerLao from Laos and the dishes really do reflect the varied cuisines of SE Asia. I had not had a really good Burmese Tea Leaf Salad since we visited there almost a decade ago. The tea leaves were fermented and while vegetarian it had that funky fish sauce flavor as well as the garlic and crunch from nuts! YUM! The other starters we shared were also novel and excellent. Guay Chai are Chive Cakes which came with pickled cucumbers and a great dipping sauce. The Nam Khao Todd, suggested by Joy, was a treat and quite a large portion with lettuce leaves to fill with the fried coconut rice salad, peanuts, herbs and fermented pork sausage(also a tofu version) all garnished with dried chili!
We chose three mains to share, and they were quite varied and all superb:
Piing Gau Khao Laam is a beautifully grilled whole poussin chicken marinated with lemongrass & turmeric with grilled coconut sticky rice in a ginger sauce. The meat was moist and tasty and for this dish the spice was way down. Crab Noodles declaim "Stir fried longevity yellow noodles" (will I live longer?), with crab, garlic butter, Chinese celery and shiitake mushroom., while the Nam Tok Ribs were crispy pork ribs with dry rub seasonings, a tamarind fish sauce, toasted rice powder, mint, cilantro, Vietnamese coriander and sticky rice, which was all nice, but lots of greens that did not get eaten.
I was full, but the others chose two desserts: Mango Sticky Rice and a Semolina Cake which looked great with Burmese roasted banana cake, brown sugar ghee, sesame seeds (which i can't eat) and coconut cream.
What a treat!!
