Neighborhood Gem Series: Join us for Laksa at Southeast Impression!

Welcome to our NEIGHBORHOOD GEMS series featuring emblematic meals from around the world. This series shines a light on local restaurants and is designed to bring together inquisitive foodies and dishes that are unique and oh so worth a trip on roads less traveled!

** WAITLIST: Meetup does not allow waitlists for paid events. If this event fills and you would like to be added to the waitlist, please send a note to the host through the Meetup app. **

Join us for a culinary adventure as we explore the vibrant flavors of Southeast Asia! This month, we're shining the spotlight on the beloved dish: LAKSA. Laksa, a popular Southeast Asian noodle soup, has a rich history and diverse variations. It's thought to have originated from a Persian word for noodle. Savor the rich, spicy coconut broth and fresh ingredients that make this dish a favorite across Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore.

The Washington Post review:

This restaurant bucks the rule: Good cooking across a huge menu. Southeast Impression serves the food of Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore in an eye-catching dining room.

Washington-area diners don’t see a lot of Hainanese chicken rice, one reason people go to Singapore just to eat. Chili crab, equally popular in Singapore and Malaysia, is another dish that deserves more places to pick it apart in the region.

Considerable thought has been lavished on the interior. Beautiful wooden benches, carved in Thailand, dress the foyer, and bottles of Asian spirits and brass vessels draw eyes to backlit shelves.

Plastic, pages-long menus with photographs are typically a sigh of a restaurant to avoid. Southeast Impression is an exception, partly because what you see is what you get. Check out the pie tee. The Malaysian appetizer — four fluted pastry shells filled with pinches of crab, shrimp and jicama — are as delicious as they are photogenic, thanks to freshly made crusts, sweet chile sauce in the dressing and a fresh orchid garnish. Steamed, pan-fried mackerel lend their silvery sheen to a salad of slippery rice noodles and tropical accents of lemongrass and cilantro.

Papaya salad is the Thai score you hope it will be: a little sour, a little spicy, salty with roasted peanuts, and crisp with threads of carrot and green beans. The pearly shrimp on the heap are good by themselves, sassier with a sprinkle of dried chiles. Duck larb is not the finely ground meat you expect, but rather cubes of duck, with bits of fat clinging to them and tossed with toasted rice powder, lime and mint. There are also red chiles for fire and fish sauce for funk. Lots to love, in other words.

A word of caution. The food comes out so fast, you might get your crunchy-meaty chicken wings before your daiquiri darkened with squid ink. ...Order a few plates at a time, which is my recommendation. The wings, red and sticky with curry, are fab. And don’t let a black drink scare you off.

You’d miss the point of the place by forgoing Hainanese chicken. A bird of a different feather, this one is slow-poached in ginger, lemongrass and pandan leaves until it approximates the texture of silk, after which the halal chicken is sliced and served alongside rice cooked in the poaching liquid. The fragrance sets you up for something lovely; the combination delivers in spades. A trio of sauces — ginger, chile, inky caramelized soy sauce — encourages dipping.

Diners who come for chili crab, a common sight in hawker stalls and fine-dining establishments in Singapore, can choose between hard or soft-shell models. I spring for the latter, a little catch of deep-fried crabs heaped on a tomato sauce that’s red with ketchup and hot sauce and laced with threads of egg. The excess sauce, bolstered with chile paste, vanishes with the help of tender little buns.

It’s unclear whether shiny gold chopsticks and other utensils make the food taste better, but the sleek implements feel good in the hand and easily transport kua kling from plate to mouth. The stir-fry — ground pork (or chicken) whose mellow yellow is from curry paste — tastes bold and bright with lime leaf, a gorgeous flavor I figure Mother Nature created on an especially inspired day.

The bartenders are serious about fun. The novel and classic cocktails are well-balanced. The $14 Hemingway daiquiri, for instance, is a smooth dance of rum, grapefruit juice and maraschino liqueur (and several dollars less expensive than in some less-fancy watering holes in the District). Some of the glasses look like estate sale finds, notably the colorful ceramic peacock used for the aptly named Wild Bird. The drink takes flight with rum, pineapple juice, passion fruit puree ... what a way to get some vitamin C!

No robots following a script here. Call the restaurant and see for yourself. Not only does a host answer, but she takes a few moments to let you know the best time to come if you haven’t made a reservation. When you order, servers steer you to things they like, not necessarily the most expensive items on the menu or what the masses deem popular. Workers convey a sense of humor, too. The last time I dropped in, my waiter bought out a trio of condiments and informed us they were “Twenty dollars a scoop — and we have cameras watching you!” It didn’t bother me that he used the same joke on a neighboring party, because he took time to lift the lid on each little bowl and describe the contents (all chile in various guises).

At any one service, a dozen cooks toil in the open kitchen. Their job revolves around almost 90 dishes. Which means I’ve only put a dent in the list. Which means three visits, even with companions to help eat, yields just a snapshot. Which means I’ll be back.

Which makes me delighted.

Check out the menu here

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If you are unable to join us in July, we hope you'll stay interested and join us for a meal in the future. Looking forward to catching up with you for Laksa at Southeast Impression!