Aulie Bunyarataphan - Owner-chef of Bangkok Joe's

All things Thai earned chef her fame 

We have her father to thank that Aulie Bunyarataphan is cooking, not designing clothes. (Though judging by what she has done with her restaurant, those clothes would look terrific.)

The owner and chef of Bangkok Joe’s, Bunyarataphan had ambitions growing up in Thailand of going to Paris to study fashion. But Papa didn’t approve. After she graduated high school, he sent her to live with a cousin in Reston, Va., to continue her education.

While in school and after, she supported herself as a waitress at the local mom-and-pop eateries that were the currency in Thai restaurants back in 1985, eventually meeting her husband, Supat “Mel” Oursinsiri, at one where he was the manager. It wasn’t long before she had worked her way into the kitchen, developing her recipes from those she found in her grandmother’s well-thumbed cookbook.

When the couple opened their first restaurant, the still-running T.H.A.I. in Shirlington, Va., those recipes came under fierce scrutiny from local food critics who were unfamiliar with authentic Thai cooking.

“The food was hard even for food critics to accept,” Bunyarataphan says.

Their response still rankles. “They said, ‘It looks very nice. But none of it resembles the original.’ I thought, How do you know how to critique my food? Have you been to the places in Thailand my food comes from?” It hurt, she says, particularly since she used some of her mother’s methods and tricks to bring true Thai flavors and textures to her menu.

The critics, though, had been exposed to only the less-provocative tastes that most  hai restaurants had assumed would be more acceptable to their Western customers. “It shocked me. My marinades, my sauces were very authentic. I updated the look, but not the taste,” Bunyarataphan says.

But her customers grew in number, and she ultimately realized she had developed a cuisine people wanted to follow. “Later, everything was wonderful.I really don’t care about the reviews. Now a lot of restaurants try to get our recipes, try to get our cooks.”

And besides, people have become more educated about Thai food since she began her professional cooking career. “Every month, on every corner, a new Thai food place opens. I was proud I was one of the first to introduce Thai food to the area. A lot of my staff are now chefs at small restaurants.”

At Bangkok Joe’s, she has taken a fresh tack, deliberately reinventing Thai food. “I don’t really cook pure Thai. I play around with international flavors,” Bunyarataphan says. Now her food is best described as “contemporary Thai.” Take the lamb, for example. “Normally in Thailand they cook it till it falls apart. I take a lamb chop, one piece. I cook it fast. I know to arrange it first before it is sent out.” Some of her touches can be attributed to her grandmother, who introduced into the family’s kitchen French cooking techniques she had learned from the nuns at her convent school.

Though Bunyarataphan returned to her homeland to study with the master chef of Bangkok’s top dumpling house before the 2003 opening of Bangkok Joe’s, her own dumplings have unconventional fillings, like lobster and pine nuts served with an Asian fruit compote. While there are more familiar dim sum items on the menu, winter squash pot stickers come stuffed with butternut squash, onion and egg. She also does a sushi salmon on sticky rice with lemongrass on top. “You won’t buy this in Thailand, but the taste is real.”

Bunyarataphan and her husband took the same approach with the design of Bangkok Joe’s. The influence of her would-be-fashion-designer eye is clear in the clean lines and juxtaposition of bold colors, which evoke Thailand without a single Thai knickknack or sunset-over-the-paddy-field picture in sight.

When it comes to the ingredients she buys, Bunyarataphan is extremely picky. “I only use one brand of fish sauce. If you send a different brand, I will return it. For Pad Thai noodles, I only use Super Premium noodles. It was difficult with suppliers when we first opened. My first Thai supplier tried to lower prices. But it lowered the quality of the meat. I had to reject it. I stopped using him for 10 years. Then he improved, so I thought, I’ll give him a try again.”

For most ingredients, she can shop locally. Asian markets fly in fresh herbs and ethnic produce from Southeast Asia on a regular basis. But Bunyarataphan grows some of her herbs at home, like the hard-to-find Thai Holy Basil. “No restaurants serve that. It smells wonderful. It reminds me of back home.”

Home for the family now is in Springfield, where Bunyarataphan has children of 5 and 7. It’s hard for them and for her, working as she does at the restaurant from 10:30 a.m. until midnight most days. “They haven’t seen me a lot. Maybe twice a week?” she says sadly. “I take care of them before I send them to school, and every Wednesday I pick them up.” On her days off, she’s exhausted from her working week. “Right now on Sunday I am so tired all I can do is go to neighborhood restaurants with my kids.” When they were smaller, they had a nanny. Now it’s her husband who is in charge of them. But with them growing up, she is weighing her future.

“I want to spend more time with my children. [My oldest is] in second grade. Already they have a lot of homework and projects.” She would also like to do a cookbook. And a lot of people, she says, ask her to open a restaurant in their neighborhoods. But if she expanded to another space, she’d want to be in charge, so she’d have even less time for her family. She is driven by high standards. “I have to be hands-on. I want things to be a certain way. Something like the same is not good enough.”

Bangkok Joe’s (202-333-4422; http://www.bangkokjoes.com) is located at 3000 K St. NW. Main courses cost $9.95 to $15.95.

This article by Julia Watson first appeared in the Northwest, Dupont, Foggy Bottom and Georgetown Current Newspapers. Photo Bill Petros/The Current.