Thaitan Thai — Restaurant in Ashburn

Excellent food, excellent service, too few staff, and poor atmosphere/acoustics.

Northern Virginia is saturated with thai restaurants and I have eaten at nearly all of them. They differ in many ways - creative vs fusion vs authentic vs traditional etc. This restaurant seems to focus on bringing very classic dishes with an emphasis on perfect cooking and solid plating.

I ordered the bbq roasted and crispy pork. It included two servings of pork, one roasted and one crispy, as well as some sweet sausage, multiple dipping sauces, dipping soup, and rice. The pork was fantastic, perfectly done. The crispy pork was very crispy on the skin and very soft in the fat and meat. The sausage and roasted pork were similarly perfectly cooked, and the roasted pork was well marinated in a gentle sauce that was sweet, tangy, and spicy, but only barely so so that the pork was still apparent.

We were very unlucky that a multifamily group came in with many young children who insisted on banging their utensils and screaming. I feel for the poor waistaff and tipped extra just out of my own embarrassment for those families. The acoustics were tested well, and unfortunately did not hold up well. The ringing of children screaming was very distracting.

Despite this, I was amazed at how fast our server took our order, responded to questions, brought adjustments, and our food! She was fantastic. I only knock the service rating because they really need to...

I tried one of the highlighted dishes on the menu, "Kao Lao Nua". This is a beef soup (not a stew by American standardized), with beef meatballs and beef slices in a rich beef broth, plus a few additional add-ons. Served with a smaller bowl off to the side so that you can eat smaller portions that cool faster than the big hot bowl.

I asked for "slightly spicy" because I didn't know how the spicy scaled at this particular place. That was a good idea because this was it was on the upper end of what I'm used to (on top of it being served hot off the stove in a hot bowl) but not so much that I couldn't taste the food, which I quite enjoyed.

Easy parking in the mall parking lot, quiet when I visited mid-afternoon, clean, friendly staff, good food, great hole-in-the-wall place that you might have to be looking for to find....

Saw the restaurant had just opened and thought we’d check it. We usually don’t have great luck with new restaurants but Thaitan did not disappoint. Had a Thai appetizer platter that included 5 different items and 3 sauces. Very good (and fried perfectly). We had the pad Thai and a “Thai style” drunken noodle. Both were delicious. A bit different than the more traditional but was a positive. Had the option of getting pad Thai with crispy chicken. Great choice. My drunken noodles included a branch of green peppercorns that was a tasty addition to the dish. Very generous portions. And as I write this note, waiting for the rain to subside, they brought us a bowl of homemade coconut ice cream. Very courteous and friendly staff. Will definitely be back….crispy duck pad Thai...