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One minute the toddler slept soundly with her five siblings in her family’s hut near the Mekong River in Laos. The next, terrified yet silent, she clung to her 10-year old sister’s torso as the Phoutasen family sped through the woods toward the Thailand border.
Close behind were communist soldiers with guns and orders to shoot anyone attempting to flee Laos.
Although Baykham Phoutasen was just 3 years old in 1975, the year that Laos fell to communist rule, she remembers that in the weeks before their family’s escape, her mother received a secret letter from her father, a former Laotian soldier who went into hiding rather than enter a communist re-education camp. Afterward, her mother gradually shed many of the family’s possessions.
“I remember the day we left, my mother gave away all the dogs to the communists; we were taught not to question,” Baykham Phoutasen, 40, said recently, standing in the Lao-Thai restaurant that she opened with her family near the Virginia Beach courthouse to honor the courage and character of her parents.
The 11-table Som Bao Cafe – filled with the scent of kaffir leaves, basil and spice – is named for her parents, Somdee and Bao Phoutasen, and it’s the fourth leg of The Pilot’s summer-long search for authentic ethnic eateries just a car ride away.
Other families didn’t make it across the river that night, swept away by the Mekong River current or caught by communist soldiers. The Phoutasen family made it and spent three years in a refugee camp in Thailand, where Baykham’s older sister, Onlakhone, died of pneumonia.
Although the Thai government offered refugees citizenship, Somdee Phoutasen wanted freedom for his family and a shot at the American dream.
The family made it to Virginia Beach in 1979 with the help of two local churches. As the oldest girl, Baykham helped to cook and care for her siblings, and she held fast to her Laotian heritage, learning to make dishes such as Thom Khem, slow-cooked pork with lemon grass, kaffir leaves, galangal (the Laotian cousin to ginger), whole fishes, sticky rice and papaya salad.
After moving from her parents’ home, Baykham set a goal of opening a family restaurant and for years hosted dinner parties to study just how far she could push the American palate into the spicy land of Laotian cuisine.
The result of that research is the Som Bao Cafe menu, a carefully curated collection of authentic Laotian dishes, tweaked ever so slightly, “a little more subtle to where everyone can enjoy it,” Baykham said, and supplemented by standards such as pad thai and curry served at the area’s many Thai restaurants.
Laotian cooks use little oil and rely heavily on broths and seasonings such as lemongrass, galangal and aromatic leaves from the kaffir lime plant – Baykham tends to one growing out back of the restaurant – and plenty of chilies.
The baseline of most Som Bao dishes is mildly spicy, just a slight burn, but servers bring a trio of chili-based seasonings to the table to suit the most adventuresome of appetites.
First-time travelers might want to start with Thom Khem, a staple in the Phoutasen family home that features pork, chicken or beef with a hard-boiled egg in a broth with the Laos signature combination of tang, sweet and spice.
To journey further into the country’s cuisine, try Laos-Style Fried Rice, a savory, slightly tangy mountain of tender rice studded with crunchy raw peanuts, parsley and basil. A hit of red curry and chile delivers a pleasant burn, yet allows the other flavors to survive. A squeeze of fresh lime rounds out the complexity and other-worldliness of the dish. The waitress called it addictive – and rightfully so.
A near-permanent addition to the daily special board is the Lao Platter, a feast for two featuring a flake-off-the bone whole tilapia in a salty-savory broth; Laos Larb, a heap of tangy-spicy minced chicken laced with the fresh, exotic flavor of kaffir leaves; and Lao jerky, thin slices of dried, marinated beef with no heat at all.
In the center of the platter sits a small dish of slow-roasted chili sauce. Baykham’s mother, Bao, always makes that smoky, searing condiment, and Baykham said it is well-known among the local Laotian community.
Tucked in between the main dishes on the platter are coves filled with savory cabbage, a Laotian staple, and broccoli tips steamed to emerald green, a cooling respite from the heat.
Like most of the Laotian entrees on the menu, the platter also comes with a woven basket filled with sticky rice, a seemingly simple side that takes hours and hours to cook. Diners who really want to go Laotian should pinch off a walnut-sized hunk, dip it into Bao’s sauce and use it as a utensil to eat the rest of the meal.
“Use chopsticks if you want to be fancy,” Baykham said. “We just use our hands.”
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