Lao-American Seng Luangrath Prepares to Open D.C.’s First Laotian Restaurant
Seng Luangrath is a Lao-American chef with a long-time passion for cooking. Her new Laotian restaurant, Thip Khao--named after the basket that khao niao (sticky rice) is cooked in--is located in Columbia Heights, Washington D.C. and is set to be open in early December. In 1981, when Seng was 12, she and and her family sought asylum from Laos, a politically unrest country in a post-Vietnam War era. With as little as clothes on their backs, money and jewelry, Seng and her family escaped to Thailand from Laos' capitol Vientiane. Seng spent two years living in a refugee camp in Nakhon Phanom in northeast Thailand. It was there she learned to cook and where her cooking was influenced in recipe and flavors by being surrounded by people from all different regions of Laos.
Her restaurant will serve an exclusively Laotian menu, including: orm, laab, and naem khao. Before opening her restaurant, she plans on visiting her ill father in Laos, as she says "It might be the last time I will see him.”
Read More: Washington City Paper