Reviews and
Recognitions



The critics and public agree, Duangrat's is the DC Area's
premier Thai restaurant destination!
Duangrat’s has earned numerous local and national accolades
including:

☆ Washingtonian’s “Very Best Restaurant” & “Very         
Best Bargain” awards for over 15 consecutive years

☆ Washingtonian’s only Thai restaurant awarded 3 stars and
coveted Blue Ribbon Award

☆ Washingtonian’s “Readers’ Choice” award- Best Asian
Restaurant

☆ Northern Virginia Magazine's "Peoples' Choice" award-
Best Asian Restaurant

☆ Pookie Duangrat, 1998 Washingtonian Restaurateur of
the Year

☆ Gourmet Magazine’s “America’s Top Tables” award
Zagat Survey’s “Restaurant of Distinction” award


"
"This is a stunning, stunning restaurant.  
Three stars and one of the best in the country!"
- Robert Shoffner, Washingtonian Magazine
Awards
The Restaurateur of the Year
award is presented annually by
the Washingtonian to the chef
or owner whose restaurant's
consistent performance over the
years has made lasting
contribution to area dining.

In every ethnic cuisine, a
breakthrough restaurant
sometimes opens that expands
our understanding of a style of
cooking and sets a benchmark
for its competetion.  It started
with Jean-Pierre Goyenvalle's
enlightened interpretation of
clasic French cooking at Le
Lion d'Or in 1976, and has
continued through the years
with Tony Cheng at Szechuan,
Yannick Cam at Le Pavillon,
Roberto Donna at Galileo,
Jeffrey Buben at the Occidental, and Josu Zubikarai at Taberna del Alabardero.
When Pookie Duangrat opened her namesake restaurant in 1987, Thai dining was already
popular, but the restaurants that offered southeast's Asia's spiciest cuisine were modest in
setting and predictable in menu.  With its sparkling chandeliers and wall niches displaying beautiful
artifacts, ceiling height windows framed with silky folds of lustrous pink fabric, and tables set with
linen, Duangrat's introduced elegance to the local Thai restaurant scene.  Its menu refreshed the
predictable Thai repertory with the likes of shrimp fried with chili paste and fava beans,
purse-shaped fried dumplings tied at the top with a length of chive, and a list of daily specials that
greatly expanded the Thai repertory.

When there was no more room to showcase depth of her native cuisine at her original restaurant,
pookie Duangrat opened two more enterprises in her Bailey's Crossroads neighborhood:  
Rabieng, which specializes in the rustic regional cooking of northern Thailand, and Bangkok St.
Grill and Noodles, a showcase for the diversity of southeast Asian street-stall cooking.

For creating and maintaining a nationalclass Thai restaurant and demonstrating the depth and
breadth of her native cuisine, Pookie Duangrat is the 1998 Restaurateur of the Year.

Restaurateur of the Year