Chalawan

Cuisine	Thai, SEA (Other)
Price	$$$ (31-50)
Rating	6/10
Last Visit	March 1, 2020
Location	Boston: North

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General Notes

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Chalawan is a relatively new restaurant to the Boston food scene, featuring Southeast Asian food with a modern, upscale twist. Many dishes have origins from southern China, Thailand, Indonesia, and Singapore. I think I originally came across this place on an Eater article and was amazed by the absurdly good reviews on Yelp. A nice, pleasant upscale restaurant that gives me vibes of Thai Villa, except without quite as much of a regal feel to it. Would love to come back and try some of their other offerings.

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Positives

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> In general, the flavors are really well balanced and not overpowering. The sweet, sour, salty, savory, and freshness come together in a beautiful harmony (probably one of my favorite aspects about dishes from Southeast Asia).
> The interior and decor feels really nice! It's upscale but not snobbish at all (although the water cups feel a little bit odd)

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Negatives

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> The pricing on the menu items feels a little bit out of whack. It's certainly quite pricey considering the relatively small portions for each dish, but the tremendous amount of variance in the prices of individual items is perhaps stranger.
> I would probably pass on their desserts next time. While not bad they likely won't impress that much either.

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Dishes Tasted

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• ★★☆☆ Thai Tea Caramel Custard + Caramel Ice Cream -- A decent dish. The Thai tea actually pairs quite well with the caramel custard, but I would have liked the Thai Tea to be a bit thicker, more like a syrup (perhaps like the texture of a creme caramel). The caramel ice cream was good but a bit overkill in terms of loading up on the caramel flavor. The star anise in the middle looks nice but really shouldn't be there.
• ★☆☆☆ Crispy Whole Fish -- 3 flavors sauce, turmeric chili krachai, lime leaf, tamarind, and pineapple. Not my favorite dish. Mostly my fault for ordering it, because in retrospect I don't think this is a dish that I would have really enjoyed (kind of just went with the server's recommendations). Either red snapper is just not suited to being deep-fried, or it was badly overcooked. Either way, the fish was tough and certainly didn't have that tender quality. Thankfully, the sauce was pretty delicious though.
• ★★★★ Sumatra Beef Cheek Rendang -- With chili, star anise, cinnamon stick, and roasted coconut. The sauce is incredible - well balanced and a nice creamy consistency, and amazing with rice. The beef cheek has quite a bit of connective tissue within it, giving the beef a pleasant, fall-apart, tender, and lightly gelatinous texture. Amazing dish! My only gripe is that it's quite expensive (a pretty small portion for $32)
• ★★★☆ Seared Alaska Scallop -- With green nahm jim, ginger, scallion, shallot, and caramelized crispy duck. The flavors were amazing and well balanced - loved the interplay between the sweet, sour, salty, and freshness. It's only $4 each, so would definitely recommend trying it out. The scallops are fairly large as well. The description was a bit misleading as it certainly wasn't seared though.