{"id":15884,"date":"2025-10-21T13:41:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T13:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/15884\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T13:41:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T13:41:13","slug":"a-new-restaurant-is-serving-classic-thai-dishes-found-nowhere-else-in-sf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/15884\/","title":{"rendered":"A new restaurant is serving classic Thai dishes found nowhere else in SF"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eat Here Now<\/a> is a first look at some of the newest, hottest restaurants around \u2013 the ones we think are worth visiting. We dine once, serve forth our thoughts, and let you take it from there.<\/p>\n

When Abid Mahajun and his wife Siripitch Phanja arrived in San Francisco from Bangkok a couple of years ago, they found the Thai food here \u201ca little off from what\u2019s authentic.\u201d<\/p>\n

For one thing, there definitely weren\u2019t \u201cshrimp donuts\u201d served on a wooden board with a peg stuck in the middle like a game of culinary ring toss. Made of shrimp paste that\u2019s coated in panko and deep fried until crispy, the snack, which they dubbed a \u201ccloud ring,\u201d is very common in Thailand, where Mahajun and Phanja used to own a restaurant. Served with a side of nam jim seafood \u2014 the ubiquitous Thai dipping sauce made of chilies, lime, sugar, and fish sauce \u2014 the ring shape is Sawaan\u2019s fun twist on the usual orb-shaped shrimp balls. <\/p>\n

In May, the couple made the dish a signature starter at Sawaan Thai Kitchen, their newly opened restaurant on a quiet block of the Mission.<\/p>\n

\"ASawaan Thai Kitchen owners Siripitch Phanja and her husband Abid Mahajun<\/p>\n

Like the clever presentation of the doughnuts, everything at Sawaan has clearly been considered. The plates and napkins bear the restaurant\u2019s street-style logo. The room, complete with a counter where you can sit and watch chef-partner Sousada Singharath at work in the open kitchen, is a mix of bright blue and yellow with mosaic-tiled tables. Low-level house music keeps your head bobbing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The menu is full of cheeky names for each dish. Spring rolls are called \u201cShrimpy Hug,\u201d while grilled beef in oyster sauce is called \u201cGrill Me Softly.\u201d It takes some sleuthing to\u00a0confirm that, yes, pad Thai is on the menu \u2014 it\u2019s just called \u201cNoodle Nation,\u201d as if to play down the fact that they did indeed at least one crowd-pleaser from the Thai-American canon. <\/p>\n

Shrimp donuts being coated in panko.<\/p>\n

Because the point here is to try things you can\u2019t find as easily at your average Thai joint in San Francisco. Like a silky, complex, rich massaman curry with chunks of potatoes and peanuts served with bone-in chicken \u2014 perfect sopped up with a side of sticky rice served wrapped like a gift in banana leaves. <\/p>\n

There is an addictive appetizer of fatty-crispy strips of pork shoulder jerky with Thai chile paste. Served still skewered through bamboo \u201cstrings,\u201d it\u2019s a nod to the way the typically sun-dried-then-fried meat is sold on the street in Bangkok. Another crispy option comes in the form of unbattered, bone-in chicken pieces, served mouth-burning hot, and showered with fried garlic<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a bubbling hot pot \u2014 or yentafo \u2014 tangy and sweet, the broth a slightly garish pink. It\u2019s afloat with a mix of fat shrimp, cubes of duck blood, springy fish balls, tofu, morning glory greens, and rice noodles. The soup wasn\u2019t my favorite, but then again, I didn\u2019t grow up with it. <\/p>\n

\"ChickenGolden Massaman with bone-in chicken, potatoes, and peanuts.<\/p>\n

More to my taste was the spicy papaya salad, a classic with a million renditions in Thailand. While it might not be uncommon, I\u2019d personally never had it served with a side of crunchy spears of veggies, cucumbers and carrots, which provide refreshingly crispy and bland respite from the salad\u2019s heat. I also loved the lemongrass catfish with fragrant, limey makrut leaves. The next time I return, I want to try the raw blue crab with chili sauce, the grilled tongue with tamarind dipping sauce, and the avocado salad with roasted cashews, lime, honey, and lychee.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The word sawaan means \u201cheaven.\u201d And as Abid puts it, \u201cIn Thai, we say something that tastes really good is like a bite of heaven.\u201d Though Sawaan\u2019s patrons are currently mostly Westerners, there is a growing group of Thais who have discovered that the menu offers the comfort of familiarity. In their case, a taste of home is heaven.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eat Here Now is a first look at some of the newest, hottest restaurants around \u2013 the ones…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[13807,2399,412,101,103,102,104,106,105,13808],"class_list":{"0":"post-15884","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-eat-here-now","9":"tag-mission-district","10":"tag-restaurants","11":"tag-san-francisco","12":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","13":"tag-san-francisco-news","14":"tag-sf","15":"tag-sf-headlines","16":"tag-sf-news","17":"tag-thai-food"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}