Jacob H.
Yelp
Duangrat's gets a lot right. This DC / Northern Virginia establishment uses high quality ingredients and treats those ingredients with care. Fish, soft shell crabs, scallops, vegetables--all are cooked with attention to time and heat such that protein is juicy and tender, leafy green vegetables have a great refreshing crunch, mushrooms aren't dark, shrunken, and rubbery, etc.
I want to rate Duangrat's between 3 and 4 stars, however, because they rely too heavily on sugar, breading, and deep-fry. Inherently there isn't anything wrong with sugar, breading, and deep-fry (they taste really good!), but when those elements form the foundation of many of your dishes, it starts to seem like a crutch or an easy way out.
We ordered the lychee dumpling, fried baby soft shell crabs, papaya salad, wok seared scallops, and garlic sea bass. The lychee dumplings were a really cool and pretty concept, but the pork didn't need to be caramelized in sugar before being stuffed inside canned lychee already steeped in syrup. The papaya salad also leaned heavily on sweetness, with only a subtle bit of fish sauce coming through on some bites (a stark contrast to papaya salad in Thailand where every bite was a pungent fish sauce punch in the face). The fried soft shell crabs were over-breaded with panko and even the sea bass seemed to have been breadedà. Finally, while the scallops were cooked to perfection in the center, the sear on them imparted an unintentional bitterness.
Overall, leaning heavy into sweetness, breading, and frying, it's easy to see why they've remained a raved-about local favorite over the decades (American palates favor sugar, breading, and deep-fry). But there are better Thai restaurants that have opened since then.