Despite the dress-up interior of Bangkok Joe’s restaurant and her own professional chef’s garb, Aulie Bunyarataphan — owner and executive chef of this and the contemporary Thai restaurant T.H.A.I. in Shirlington — looks very casual and just a little bit older than a teen. Yet she has packed in 20-plus years of cooking and restaurant management experience, and brims with so much energy and so many ideas that ordinary folk feel somewhat dazed.
Clearly, her can-do personality has propelled her to the top of the Thai restaurant world, a rarefied place where competition is keen and chef-shuffling is part of the game. Fortunately, Aulie (pronounced “oo-lee”) can easily work every aspect and station of her two restaurants and that must be a saving grace.
“I have no formal training,” the Bangkok native says, “but I have been in the restaurant business 20 years. I am self-taught. I can manage a restaurant. I can plan menus.”
And, of course, she can cook. But unlike many of her contemporaries, cooking was not Aulie’s first career choice.
“I wanted to be a fashion designer,” she says. “But my old-fashioned grandfather wanted me to come here [Washington, D.C.] for nine months to take a secretarial course.” But Aulie had other ideas. After getting involved with computer work, she extended her visa two more times, getting family permission to continue her studies for a bachelor’s degree.
As it happened, she extended her stay even longer so she could earn a master’s degree. But when she needed extra finances to fund her living expenses and studies, Aulie decided to work in one of the early DC Thai restaurants, known as Ploy. Not only did she meet her future husband, Mel, there, she also discovered one life-changing fact: She liked the restaurant business.
Although she worked as its manager and accountant, she also was challenged by the owner to revolutionize the Thai restaurant concept in D.C., updating it from “mom and pop” to ultra-contemporary. Fortunately, she was no stranger to kitchen practices, having grown up in a household where fine cooking ranked prominently. Indeed, as a child, she had helped her grandmother plan and shop for the family’s daily meals, always traditional Thai dishes enhanced by French cooking techniques.
Her grandmother’s training and recipes plus Aulie’s wildly inventive imagination have helped her transition from restaurant management to top-flight Thai chef, creating dishes, as she says, that have the traditional Thai taste but take on a totally contemporary and distinctive look.
“I present Thai food in a totally modern way,” she says. “I come up with traditional Thai dishes that don’t look Thai and are also seasonal. I change the menu four times a year, and offer weekly specials. I think of food as art, and I tell my staff that they must first make the food beautiful, giving it height and color.” Note: Think lamb chops in a traditional massamun curry served over mashed potatoes.
So successful was her first restaurant, T.H.A.I. in Shirlington, that Aulie took on another, possibly even greater, challenge: Opening a “fast-food” restaurant serving dumplings. To prep for the new Georgetown location, which she named Bangkok Joe’s, Aulie flew to Thailand to study dumpling-making with master chef Heng Pukdepol of Suan Lum Seafood, the city’s most renowned dumpling house. “I got the idea to do something different, and dumplings are another [restaurant] concept,” she says. “My dumplings are sophisticated. They are not Chinese, because I have modified the techniques.” Why not? Her menu of dumplings, pot-sticker, and spring rolls include such temptations as shrimp and crab gyoza with pickled ginger and Peking duck spring rolls with a cherry-hoisin dipping sauce. (Note: Aulie’s menu also includes soups, salads, entrée-sized noodle and rice bowls, meat and fish entrées, and desserts.)
Bangkok Joe’s, with its sophisticated setting and quick service, may be Aulie’s second brainchild, but it certainly won’t be her last. A Thai trailblazer, she might run a national chain of Thai restaurants, or maybe create a line of frozen dumplings. One thing for sure: “I can’t do anything else besides food,” she says.
In Bunyarataphan’s own words
What is your comfort food? Rice or noodles. Thais are always hungry for rice.
Which ingredients are your staples? Cilantro roots, lemongrass, coconut milk, ginger, Thai peppers, and garlic. Maybe fish sauce. … I use coconut milk for curries, and light coconut milk for soups. I use ginger for the dumplings, curry, sauces, desserts and drinks. Thai peppers and garlic are blended together in all stir-fries.
What’s in your fridge right now? Ah, eggs, bread, soy milk, juice, cheese, ham, all for the kids. Celery, scallions, romaine and iceberg lettuces, smoked salmon, cabbage, broccoli … already peeled lemongrass, julienned fresh ginger, kaffir lime and Thai peppers and herbs.
What do you do in your leisure time? I watch movies and eat popcorn with lots of butter with the kids. I am a junk-food person.
Where do you eat out? Lately nowhere. I love French, modern American and Japanese foods. The kids love [TGI Friday’s] and Macaroni Grill. The kids are boss.
Aulie Bunyarataphan’s Pork ‘n’ Crab Shumai
1 1/2 pounds ground pork loin
1/2 lb. crab meat, picked clean of cartilage
1/4 cup chopped water chest nuts
4 sprigs cilantro, chopped
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1/4 cup oyster sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1/4 cup cornstarch
Ground white pepper to taste
1 package wonton wrappers
Place the first 11 ingredients into a mixing bowl and stir well. Place about 1 heaping tablespoon of filling in the center of a square wrapper and fold the edges of the wrapper up like a bag, pinching the edges closed. Repeat with the remaining ingredients. Steam the dumplings for 10 minutes and serve hot with soy sauce.
If you go
Bangkok Joe’s
3000 K St., NW
Washington, D.C.
202-333-4422
Hours: Lunch & dinner daily
