Where to eat and
spot serves unapologetic Southern Thai cuisine, with its lusty embrace of mouth-staining turmeric, pungent odours (stink beans or satoh, the sulfuric emanations of acacia leaves) and extreme heat.
Less confrontational options include steamed mussels in fragrant, lemongrass-spiked broth ($14.95) or addictive salads with battered and fried spinach, pomelo (the milder direct ancestor of the grapefruit), or green mango and toasted coconut (all from $13.95 to $18.95). The adventurous and asbestos-tongued should flip to the last four pages of the menu for Jitlada’s Southern specialties.
One less fearsome option is the Crying Tiger (beef or pork crusted with coriander and caramelised palm sugar, $12.95).
Extreme eaters will enjoy a choice of meat dry-fried in a turmericand chili-heavy curry paste ($12.95). Those seeking liquid heat should order the fish-kidney curry ($18.95), acacia-leaf omelet and shrimp in sour soup ($15.95), or the Southern curry with “wild tea” leaves ($20.95) with clams.
Cool down with the mango and sticky rice ($8) for dessert.
Lacha Somtum Thai Restaurant specialises in tart, punchy north-eastern or Isan cuisine, and the Thai national obsession of som tum.
American diners probably have encountered “som tum Thai” – shards of green papaya pounded with peanuts, dried shrimp and other accompaniments. But som tum, literally meaning something like “sour pound”, comes in endless varieties.
It is less a material dish than a methodology, a mélange of highly seasoned ingredients bruised in a mortar and pestle.
Adventurers should try the som tum with salted black crab, crab juices and fermented fish paste ($10.95) – the restaurant’s most assertive version of what food historians say is an earlier iteration of the dish, as eaten in the Isan region and neighbouring Laos.
It’ll sulk at the table, draped in black and sporting a stinky attitude. But for those who love its haunting, basso-profundo pitch, all others pale in comparison.
If that’s too hard core, Lacha has other options. Its chefs pound fruit, salted eggs, corn or a tangle of rice vermicelli; they even fry green papaya shreds into great nests and provide a zingy sauce for pouring over the top ($10.95 to 12.95).
Round out your meal with terrific meat salads tossed with lime juice, herbs and toasted rice powder – a minced-duck larb crispy with cracklings ($13.95) or a smoky grilled-pork salad ($11.95). The fermented sausages ($9.95) and a spicy pork-rib soup ($13.95) are delicious.
Look for the Thai-language menu board and ask your server to translate, if you’re curious. Offerings can include an Isan bamboo salad or a tum with pickled mussels. – The Washington Post