“We rarely head to Thai restaurants for the wine. Then again, few Thai restaurants have hired the Best Sommelier of the Americas (2018) to create their wine list. Baan Lao, a new high-end Thai restaurant in Steveston, is that exception. Quebec-based Master Sommelier Pier-Alexis Soulière has pulled together a selection of wines heavy on B.C. and international labels, all designed to complement the complex sweet-sour-salty-spicy cuisine of chef Nutcha Phanthoupheng.
This is elevated Thai as we have rarely, if ever, seen in Vancouver, served with elegant theatricality in a beautiful riverside setting. The evening opens with a Thai dancer and then waltzes through an opulent nine-course menu with optional wine or tea pairings.
Dishes burst with bright, fresh flavours, many of them courtesy of the living wall of fresh herbs. Ingredients are organic and, whenever possible, local. Among the most memorable dishes are the signature sockeye salmon, which comes topped with caviar and gold leaf, and the pad Thai, which is wrapped in a lacy egg cage that is almost too beautiful to eat. (But eat it anyway.)
Thailand may be off the itinerary this summer, but Steveston is definitely, and deliciously, within reach.”