Family affair

Sang Dao
5421 El Cajon Blvd.
Rolando
619-263-0914

Sang Dao is a family affair. Two young brothers man the cash register and take orders while their father buses dishes and their mother cooks, passing fragrant dish after dish with practiced agility through a square cutout in the restaurant wall. Eating there is like being invited into their home for a meal, except you have to pay a little money—but believe me, it won’t be very much and you’ll want to leave them more.

I was with my own adventurous-eating family, the cherished key members plus a visiting food-hunter from Yuma. As we sat down at a four-top table, it became apparent that it would be too small for our purposes, so we switched to a table for six that had more surface area for the succession of dishes that were sure to come.

I’d already been in once, for a lunch and a catch-up session with a friend, and thought what we ate, including yum nuea, a beef salad, and stir-fried flat noodles, were delicious, but I complained to my other food-soul mates that though I’d told our server the first time around that I liked things spicy, I don’t think he believed me, since our food arrived at a barely tongue-tingling level. I found the hot kick I craved on the condiment tray, which holds no less than five types of chili-based seasonings.

Kirk, often the knowing voice of experience at these meals, said we needed to ask that the food be “Lao spicy” to get the real deal, so he ordered a bunch of dishes, both on- and off-menu, that we all agreed upon. I reordered the Choo Chee Shrimp that I remembered fondly from my last meal, the tender seafood and red-pepper strips smothered in an obviously homemade and complex red curry sauce enriched with coconut milk and scented by lime leaves.

Sang Dao’s menu is primarily made up of Thai dishes that may look familiar, but the family is from Laos, so there are also a number of distinct regional favorites. Many dishes can be ordered Thai or Lao style, the main difference being that Lao dishes are often more sour and pungent than sweeter Thai versions.

Larb, a classic Northeastern Thai or Laotian meat salad, is the epitome of the texture and taste contrasts that make me so fond of Southeast Asian food. We asked for the special tripe and raw-beef version, mixed with chili, lime, onions, cilantro, mint and (don’t cringe) beef bile, which gives the dish a pleasant, but mild, bitterness. I loved its unique flavor, but you might better enjoy a version of the salad made with ground chicken that omits the bile.

The raw-beef larb is traditionally eaten with an organ meat soup called Tom Kroung Nai—as our young server put it,

“It’s like getting fries with a burger,” so we sticklers for authenticity tested it and found it delicious. The spicy and flavorful broth helped dial down the inherent funkiness of the offal.

Also delicious and new was a version of papaya salad made exclusively with long beans, the crunchy green stalks marinating in tangy dressing of dried shrimp, garlic, tomato, chili and lime.

As with many Asian cuisines, rice is a staple, but here you have the choice between steamed white rice or a bamboo basket of steamed sticky rice, chewy and cooling when eaten alongside fiery dishes.

Like any thoughtful family, Sang Dao wants to send you home with snacks, so the front counter of the restaurant is stacked with homemade treats, from cylindrical waffle cookies made with coconut milk and black sesame seeds to Lao beef jerky and sweet-spicy sausages, flavored with lemongrass and chili. 

Write to candicew@sdcitybeat.com and editor@sdcitybeat.com.