Baan Latsamy, or The Bad Karma Cheesecake

Except that’s not quite what happened.

Instead, I got a call on Sunday morning from my mother, telling me that my brother’s plane had been forced to turn around and land back in Melbourne because the landing gear wouldn’t retract.

“But it’s okay,” she said calmly, “we’ll still be having lunch together; this just means we’ll collect him from the airport on the way.”

Except that’s not quite what happened.

Instead, when my dad picked me up en route to Baan Latsamy, he told me that E.TeacherLord hadn’t been able to get another flight until 3pm.

“But it’s okay,” he said calmly, “we might as well still eat without him, right?”

And that is how, on a rainy Sunday lunchtime in December, my three grandparents, parents, and I enjoyed a laughter-filled, spicy, and well-cooked (for the most part, but we’ll get to that) Thai lunch, all while I periodically texted my brother in Melbourne to tell him how tasty the food was and to thank him for being the cause of our lovely celebration.

Turns out we only needed the excuse, not the actual person.

After disappointing experiences with green papaya/paw paw salad in both Paris and here in Canberra with Helen, I had lost faith in the possibility of my ever finding a truly spicy, zingy, flavourful, and knock-my-socks off rendition of the dish.

Enter Baan Latsamy. This restaurant’s Som Tum (“shredded green paw paw salad in a spicy sauce”) was everything I’d ever dreamed of and more. Sure, I was expecting some nuts, prawns, or other protein to appear in the salad, as that’s what I’ve been served before, but I really couldn’t fault the intense flavour punch of this salad. The shredded paw paw, carrots, and cherry tomatoes had been tossed with a sauce so fragrant and flavourful I wanted to hug it, but I settled for gobbling it up.

Only after the last swallow did I realise that this Som Tum was, in fact, very spicy. My mouth started to feel like Hades, and so I kept my lips tightly shut to avoid Eurydice escaping if I opened them.

My dad had the duck lunch special, which was apparently so good that he forgot to share it with Mum, as had been promised. Mum, my grandmothers, and grandfather all also enjoyed their meals (from memory, a chicken with cashews, a beef with cashews, a green curry chicken, and a something with something. The last dish was particularly good, I’m sure).

Then came dessert, at which point we all made clever choices, were heartily pleased with our sweets, and didn’t get smacked with the karma stick.

Except that’s not quite what happened.

Instead, karma decided to wreak revenge on behalf of my poor taunted-and-stuck-in-an-airport brother, by convincing my dad and me to share a Cookies and Cream Cheesecake.

In a Thai restaurant.

Yep.

First issue: the ratio of cheesecake to plate. Seriously, is that not the tiniest sliver of cheesecake you’ve ever seen?

Second issue: the cheesecake bent. As in, when I tried to put my spoon through it, the cheesecake was so old and dried out that the entire cake bowed under the pressure of the spoon rather than yielding to it. My dad had to hold the cheesecake in place with his spoon so that I could hack through it.

To be fair, there was a 7mm section in the centre of the cheesecake that was soft and tasty, but I’ll tell you this for free:

Karma is rubbery plasticky cheesecake.

Thankfully my mother has the smarts, and ordered black sticky rice with custard and fresh mango. Although I’ve never thought of myself as particularly enamoured with coconut-rich sticky rice, Dad and I couldn’t help ourselves from “contributing” to Mum polishing off this dessert.

Oh, and my brother? His second flight was late too.

Want to know why?

It was struck by lightning.

I laughed so hard my stomach hurt.

(See Billy of A Table for Two’s take on Baan Latsamy here.)

Tagged as: Baan Latsamy, E.TeacherLord, restaurant review, Thai