Bai-Tong keeps the taste of Thailand

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Bai-Tong keeps the taste of Thailand

Saturday, March 18, 2000

By GREGORY ROBERTS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCR RESTAURANT CRITIC

The story behind Bai-Tong is the stuff of local restaurant legend, at least among Thai food aficionados.

A dozen years ago, Chanpen Lapangkura, an entrepreneurial flight attendant with Thai Airways International, hooked up with a friend who managed a Budget Inn near the airport in SeaTac and cut a deal with the airline: Together, she and her friend would house and feed flight crews on layover.

They signed a contract with TAI and installed a small kitchen and dining room in the motel. Lapangkura brought in some top restaurant chefs from her native Bangkok and fed the flight crews meals like the ones they ate back home.

At first, only TAI flight crews could eat there. But after a year or so, Lapangkura opened to the public, and the word got out. Her business grew, and she relocated to a former root-beer restaurant and drive-in by the airport's north end. She called her restaurant Bai-Tong, which is Thai for banana leaf.

Although those original chefs long ago returned to Bangkok, Bai-Tong continues to serve food cooked according to their authentic recipes.

"We try to make it as they do in Thailand," Lapangkura said. "Even the Americans who come here have to eat my way, too, because I keep doing what I used to do 10 years ago."

Bai-Tong. 15859 Pacific Highway S., SeaTac; 206-431-0893. Lunch 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday-Friday; dinner 5-10 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 5-9 p.m. Sunday. Beer and wine
All major credit cards. No smoking. No obstacles to accessibility. Free parking in lot.

But that doesn't mean only food spiced to searing intensity. Nor does the lengthy, illustrated menu lack dishes familiar to diners who eat regularly at Thai restaurants. Seasonings, while often assertive, are well within normal Thai-restaurant range and may be adjusted on request. And the appetizer sampler plate ($7.95), for instance, includes such Thai standbys as crunchy spring rolls and the fish cakes called tod mun pla, as well as Chinese-influenced won ton, deep-fried crispy and filled with a bit of pork.

Lemon grass, chili, lime juice, galanga root and magrood leaves jazz up a redolent bowlful of hot-and-sour soup with prawns ($7.95). Slices of char-grilled pork play off sliced cucumber, lettuce, tomatoes and onion drizzled by a vivid lime dressing in the yum nuea salad ($7.95).

Lapangkura buys toey leaves from Hawaii for shrouding boneless chicken deep-fried as an appetizer ($7.95), and the fibrous wrapper keeps the meat wonderfully moist and succulent, for serving with a paint-the-lily sweet sauce. She travels to Thailand to shop for the seasonings for the curries, such as the green one ($6.95) that drenches bamboo shoots and a choice of meat in a pungent, penetrating, coconut-milky sauce. Main courses take a milder turn with stir-fried mixed vegetables and a choice of meat ($6.95) in a well-tempered oyster sauce.

Bai-Tong seats 120 diners in two casual, well-scrubbed dining rooms that are short on kitsch and long on blond wood. For years, the old root-beer stand's giant mock barrel, altered to look like a pagoda, stood as a landmark on the roof, but it blew down in a windstorm a few winters ago.

Lapangkura was a newcomer to the restaurant business when she started out in SeaTac, but she said she benefited from her years with TAI, which was recognized for its superior airline food. Beyond that, she said, "I learned from eating. I eat a lot. I eat around. I go everywhere in Thailand where they say there is good food."

P-I restaurant critic Gregory Roberts can be reached at 206-448-8356 or gregoryroberts@seattle-pi.com