It dawned on me last month over a frosty cocktail and some crispy fermented mushrooms: Langbaan, the once-exclusive Thai restaurant that reinvented itself last year with a new patio and a menu of fragrant seafood dumplings, curry-slicked noodles and golden-fried duck, hadn’t just become more accessible. It was now serving some of the most exciting drinking snacks in town.
Call it a tryout. This fall, Langbaan, one of the most celebrated Thai restaurants in America, will move from its original Southeast Portland home to a new, more spacious location in Northwest Portland. And when it does, it will be tucked behind a new restaurant, Phuket Cafe, with lunch and dinner served seven days a week to guests seated in a mock Thai train car stationed out front of the old Ataula space, 1818 N.W. 23rd Place.